I need some advice

[kirkline]

Hi. I may be starting a groundwork contract on a building site. I am self employed and pay my own tax. The agency are saying that I have to use an umbrella company to get paid as they do not pay self employed workers.

1. Do I have to use an umbrella company (pay them to pay me)?
2. Is there any other way to do this?

I am new to the whole game as I have always worked private.

Any advise is great, thanks.

Kirk

[Steven@Parasol]

Hi. I may be starting a groundwork contract on a building site. I am self employed and pay my own tax. The agency are saying that I have to use an umbrella company to get paid as they do not pay self employed workers.

1. Do I have to use an umbrella company (pay them to pay me)?
2. Is there any other way to do this?

I am new to the whole game as I have always worked private.

Any advise is great, thanks.

Kirk

I'm not familiar with the building indursty but one alternative to umbrella working, and one that is very common amongst the contractors on here is working via your own limited company.

This is fairly simple to do yourself or a specialist contractor accountant (again you'll find plenty mentioned on here) can do it all for you as part of a regular monthly fee.

Do you know your agencies reasoning for suggesting an umbrella? Its worth checking that they don't actually own the umbrella themselves!

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

The umbrella company would probably be paying you via the CIS scheme - details here HM Revenue & Customs: Child Benefit: Introduction . The agency would not want to take you on as self-employed as they run the risk of debt transfer should you not pay your tax bill.

HTH

PS. although the HMR&C link says an intro to child benefit it does actually take you to details of the CIS scheme