I stumbled across this forum a week ago whilst doing some research on IR35 for a mate who's recently started contract work. Having find plently of info by searching I've noticed what a great resource this forum is, so I intend to stick around - hence the registration.
I work as an accountant in industry. I graduated from uni 3 1/2 years ago and have since passed my ACCA exams and become a full member. The idea was to get the studying done early and out of the way, but I've since realised that it's a non-stop learning process in this game
I'm not sure what the future might hold and one day I might consider going in to self employment, perhaps specialising in accounting for contractors. The IR35 sure does seem a tricky beast though, but who knows may be it will be abolished soon?
The conservatives promised to repeal this unfair legislation that punishes those who try to better themselves.
the legislation is still here a couple of years on which can only mean that we were lied to.
there are a couple of threads on here about IR35 but if you have any specific questions it's best just to post your query and even if it's been done before we'll either point you to an old post or answer afresh.
Considering your background looking forwards to seeing you as a net contributor on here Sam.
As well as a core contingent of ICB, IAB and AAT people, we've also got a few FCCA's, seemingly lot's of PQ ACCA's, some ACA's and also quite a few CIMA and ATT bods as well as IFA's and AIA's so basically this sites sancturary for all those ikeminded professionals who have been battle scared by venturing unprepared onto sites such as accountingweb.
People here are quite freindly... They have to be or I delete them (joking... Maybe!). There's a real sense of comoradory with members genuinely trying to look after each other in a drive to take the profession forwards.
Hope that you enjoy your time on here,
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I have never understood why there couldn't be a straight forward 'ruling' on employment status for the Friday P45, Monday morning Ltd Co's brigade. We had one client who physically relocated to Holland when it was first enacted.
there were a lot of contractors who were IT people who reached the top of their game and then hit the ceiling as to how far they could go in their current positions. They had the option of either abandoning the work that they loved doing and going into management or pretty much staying where they were for the rest of their lives.
Personally I went from being a senior analyst with an IT department to principle consultant with a large management consultancy but when I hit the top pay grade I found that I was being put into companies basically as a contractor in order to bring in quite big returns for my employer (about £1800 to £2600 per day back in 1990!).
Even though it was called employement staff were not excected to take their holiday entitlement, you were expected to work when clients needed you including weekends, you were given no training and there were no overtime payments.
On the back of being put out on site with no backup I thought why not just do this for myself so I set up my own company providing expertise to companies at a lower rate than when my previous employers charged me out but giving no lesser service.
Contracts with companies such as my previous employers fobade working directly with former clients so it really was a leave on Friday then that's it rather than as the industry was put accross in order to force through some dodgy legislation.
All contractors that I worked with until Labour got in had similar stories yet labour would have us believe that we were just doing the same roles and had guaranteed risk free income.
In a self fullfiling prophecy sort of way, following all of the furur caused by labour stating that people were leaving on a Friday and coming back on a Monday paying less tax (or more to the point, less N.I.) employee's actually started doing exactly that and we ended up with a lot of very poor quality contractors who didn't have the experience necessary to find positions and after a short while just wanted to find permanent employment again but often couldn't as once people went contract employers didn't want to know about them for permanent roles again.
People took the limited company route because agencies would not deal with the self employed. It was not an engine for tax avoidance, it was the only method of being paid!
Note that whilst other issues such as the year 2000 anyone who could spell computer going contract and outsourcing also had an effect on the industry I would say that IR35 was what really broke the industry leaving the door open for foreigh contracts paid offshore paying no UK tax to take the positions previously bringing in a lot of tax revenue for the Government.
The closest approximation that I can think of to what Labour did to the UK contract industry would be to imagine having a goose that lays golden eggs. You can get £1000 a day for an egg ad infinitum. Or you can get £1500 today for the dead goose for medical experiments... Guess which the Muppets went for!
Sure that they would never do anything else that stupid such as, oh I don't know, sell the gold reserves for a couple of marbles and bag of conkers!
All in all my view of the last administration is that I wouldn't give any of them a job cleaning toilets let alone running the countries finances (I did send a couple of triple A batteries to the chancellor when Gordon had that job as I felt sure that those in his calculator couldn't be working. Typical, never even got a thankyou).
Rant over but thanks for the opportunity to vent it.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
That was a interesting insight there Shaun from someone who was affected by the introduction of IR35 - I like the analogy too! There's definitely a lot of contractors who feel indignant about it and the more I read the more I can understand why.
Could you recommend any books or even courses I could go on to better my understanding of it?
lol Shaun, you're welcome for the opportunity and I've been enlightened after a decade of not knowing any better. I thought there should be an annual award for postings and it's only 2 January so thanks.
I suppose that if statutory entitlements had been enforced, then the net result would have been the same.... relocation to Holland and loss of tax revenue.... so this is what happend to those kids playing with Amstrad and Sinclair etc before the rest of Europe.
Here's one for you. An acquaintance, after fighting IR35 went over the VAT Reg threshold. I told him and told him but he felt the injustice so greatly that he wouldnt register and ended up so distracted he took a job in South Africa.
I actually deleted some of my Gordon references but the tripple AAA batteries one will do lol
