Income Shifting

[SueEllen]

The e-petition is a waste of time IMHO. Write to your MP and complain about it, and if anyone tries to stiff you with a tax bill on this basis, appeal it as far as you can. But we will have to deal with in in April.

Don't bother writing if your MP is Labour though as only about 7% of them come from a business background. http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib...snsg-01528.pdf

Here is a link where you can fax your MP - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

[Ardesco]

Stop being so miserable.

If people cause the government enough trouble they abandon laws i.e. poll tax or find it very difficult to enforce them.

The problem is that the government has been doing a hatchet job in the press on IT contractors in the press for years. They have convinced the vast majority that we are all illegally dodging tax and not paying anything while the permies pay the tax we should be paying for us.

Permies are not going to get thier head around corporation tax, the fact we don't get benefits like sick pay, holiday, pension, etc. and the fact that we don't have a guaranteed income. They all think we are living an easy life of loads of money, no risk and we are just not paying tax that we should so that we can give them the two fingers.

By making it an attack against IT contractors they have probably got a load of other small businesses (plumbers, shops, builders, etc.) to agree to the idea of this legislation without actually understanding the consequences for themselves.

With this in mind no matter how much we shout there will be a sizeable majority who will say that it is a good idea and "only fair".

The sickening thing is that the people that are really taking the piss and not paying thier way are the manual labourers who take cash in hand and don't declare it, or have thier company's in thier name and get the cheque cashed into thier personal account without going through the books, rather than into thier business account.

[malvolio]

About six months back, someone in the local pub challenged me as being a tax-avoiding wotsit. I pointed out that my overall tax bill for the year was greater than his gross salary of around £35k... OK, I'd had a good year, but the point stuck.

Or you could point out that Philip Green took a £1.2bn dividend and paid no tax at all. Why isn't he being persecuted rather than knighted...?

[tim123]

Permies are not going to get thier head around corporation tax, the fact we don't get benefits like sick pay, holiday, pension, etc. and the fact that we don't have a guaranteed income. They all think we are living an easy life of loads of money, no risk and we are just not paying tax that we should so that we can give them the two fingers.

The attitude of (some) contractors at client sites doesn't help this, of course.

tim

[Ardesco]

The attitude of (some) contractors at client sites doesn't help this, of course.

tim

Agreed, not to mention the fact that there are some contractors out there who are blatantly breaking the law and actually paying nothing, however they will get caught eventually and they will regret it.

This being said, I'm sure there are just as many permies engaging in illegal activity as there are contractors.

[Bluebird]

This being said, I'm sure there are just as many permies engaging in illegal activity as there are contractors.

but the activity we are engaged in is not illegal.

[Ardesco]

but the activity we are engaged in is not illegal.

Never said we were, just said that some do.

[Denny]

About six months back, someone in the local pub challenged me as being a tax-avoiding wotsit. I pointed out that my overall tax bill for the year was greater than his gross salary of around £35k... OK, I'd had a good year, but the point stuck.

Or you could point out that Philip Green took a £1.2bn dividend and paid no tax at all. Why isn't he being persecuted rather than knighted...?

Because he can afford to take a £65,000 annual holiday in the Carribean rubbing shoulders with Simon Cowell and other super rich folk, that's why! He's to powerful and rich, in other words, and he and others like him are the big business 'tail that wags the dog' (the government).

Unfair though, as you say.