We're All In This Together .....

[Lateralthinking1]

Appalled. This is an absolute scandal. How long before we hear it is going on in DWP and HMRC too?

[ahinton]

governments love self employment, Costs them nothing now, and nothing in the future, since the SE get close to zero benefits.

It must make genuine, hard working self employed people sick to see what are, in fact highly paid public servants getting a nice little tax break.

This break may save the government a few pounds, but it would be better if it were all above board, and we paid them a bit less.

Easy solution.

Not necessarily; as I mentioned, employers get around NIC1 liability when they contract companies rather than employ individuals and when those employers are public service ones that reduces the liability for the taxpayer who funds those employers. I do take your point about "genuine, hard working self employed people", of course (especially being one of them myself!), but the message that this sends out to some of them is to incorporate rather than continue on a sole trader basis.

[ahinton]

This is an absolute scandal. How long before we hear this is going on in DWP and HMRC too?

I don't know, but I assume that many people have already assumed that it goes on there and in many other public and private sector workplaces.

[MrGongGong]

Having always been self employed , what I have noticed is for those of us who are sole traders (which includes the vast majority of musicians ) things have got much tighter so that if one has temporary cash flow problems (try being ill for a couple of weeks with no sick pay etc ) there is no way to negotiate spreading things like tax and Ni while one recovers. When I started my first three years tax bills were based on my first years profit, this effectively meant that I had very low tax while I got my business established (and then gradually paid it all over the course of several years). If I was starting out today , it would be significantly harder to develop a significant body of work to become viable as a business. Surely we should be encouraging people to be self reliant and develop careers that make the most of their talents and skills ???

[teamsaint]

No - well, not this one, anyway. All employed statuses can be used as tax dodges by those who wish to do so; one has only to consider the employers who employ people over state retirement age in order to avoid employers' NIC1 liability, only to have their employees sub-contract work to others, rather than actually employing people who are under state retirement age directly - and that's only one of heaven knows how many such dodges. SOme of these get-arounds are harder in France; for example, self-employed sole traders' social charges do not cease when they reach state retirement age as is the case over here but continue indefinitely as long as they continue to work (so it's no wonder that there's such a black market for work over there).

so how do you suggest we stop taxpayers being ripped off by these somewhat underhand payment methods?

[teamsaint]

Having always been self employed , what I have noticed is for those of us who are sole traders (which includes the vast majority of musicians ) things have got much tighter so that if one has temporary cash flow problems (try being ill for a couple of weeks with no sick pay etc ) there is no way to negotiate spreading things like tax and Ni while one recovers. When I started my first three years tax bills were based on my first years profit, this effectively meant that I had very low tax while I got my business established (and then gradually paid it all over the course of several years). If I was starting out today , it would be significantly harder to develop a significant body of work to become viable as a business. Surely we should be encouraging people to be self reliant and develop careers that make the most of their talents and skills ???

MrGG I was SE for 20 years. In all that time, on ONE occasion, I asked if i could delay payment of £300 for a month. I was content to pay the interest, and told them so. No kidding, i got the third degree. Questions like, what credit cards do you have, what car do you drive. utter nonsense. I certainly wasn't going to sell my car (work vehicle) to pay a bill, since without my car ( a diesel C3 as it happens) i had no business.
I was , I have to say, really pretty upset about this. Once. in 20 years. Every other payment on the button.
The government do close to zero to help the SE, and take far too much from them, including 2 classes of NI.
Very pro business, these governments of ours !!Pro big business that is.

[MrGongGong]

indeed

I had more or less the same experience
trying to explain that if I paid off all my tax using a credit card I would be unable to put petrol in the car or buy a train ticket to get to work so would go bust seemed to have no effect at all........aaaaaargh

at the moment i'm recovering from rather big surgery a couple of weeks ago, I have music to write so don't need to travel too much in the next few weeks but the consequences of not getting better would be financial disaster for us
thankfully I'm feeling much better and able to start doing stuff again and isn't it great that all the NI I have religiously paid on time has given me sick pay not a chance matey

[Lateralthinking1]

Mr GG - Wishing you a very speedy recovery. - Lat.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er i have been variously employed by myself as self employed and company owner for thirty seven years; the rules they are a chaangin etc ...

the main thing is the scandal of recasualising work, the working poor, the multi part time jobs and the avoidance of employment legislation by any means possible .... any one remmeber the docks labour board and why it was created or the Merchant Navy Establishment ... casualised labour was how the Victorians massacred the workers ...

as i said enough to make one a Fabian ...

[ahinton]

Having always been self employed , what I have noticed is for those of us who are sole traders (which includes the vast majority of musicians ) things have got much tighter so that if one has temporary cash flow problems (try being ill for a couple of weeks with no sick pay etc ) there is no way to negotiate spreading things like tax and Ni while one recovers. When I started my first three years tax bills were based on my first years profit, this effectively meant that I had very low tax while I got my business established (and then gradually paid it all over the course of several years). If I was starting out today , it would be significantly harder to develop a significant body of work to become viable as a business. Surely we should be encouraging people to be self reliant and develop careers that make the most of their talents and skills ???

Of course we should!