If you want 85% take home - guaranteed....

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Read this first: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/avoidance/tempted.pdf and then look for a decent accountancy firm or umbrella company

[northernladuk]

Mods : OP is pushing dodgy schemes on the forums. Please do the needful

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Mods : OP is pushing dodgy schemes on the forums. Please do the needful

Don't know if this warrants or a

[northernladuk]

Don't know if this warrants or a

I spent 15 minutes reading the links to see where I sign up. Very dissapointed

p.s. I'll take both, I am a little strange like that

[SimonMac]

So the government is telling us not to avoid paying tax to the government, whodathunkit!

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I spent 15 minutes reading the links to see where I sign up. Very dissapointed

p.s. I'll take both, I am a little strange like that

Somehow that doesn't surprise me

[craig1]

The problem is that it's like speeding at over 100mph, there's a good chance you'll not get caught but if you do then you're going to get a proportionately large punishment by the police and court. Even then, if you get the right lawyer you've a good chance of getting away without too nasty a penalty. HMRC just don't have the staff or backing of the government to deal with evasion properly, if they were given the tools and powers then they might go for individuals and companies that are politically sensitive and that wouldn't do, would it? Far better from a political perspective to give narrow and difficult to use powers than broad-brush ones.

I think that the tax laws are written the wrong way round. They tend to concentrate on specific items then leave it up to the courts to decide if a particular scheme is caught. They could fix it with a simple law that says there's a presumption that if you live in the UK and earn in the UK then you pay tax in the UK on your entire taxable estate, if you wish to offshore any income you make in a tax year then you need prior approval from HMRC. Same with earned income through a UK based company, it should be subject to standard corporate taxation then personal taxation, where appropriate, unless you have an exemption. It would certainly lead to interesting discussions down the local tax office:

Scenario 1:
Contractor: "I want to route my earnings through an IoM company who then pay me back through a tax scheme I don't really understand."
HMRC: "Please explain the business logic behind this and why we should allow it"
Contractor: "erm, I want to pay less tax. Ah, no, they said to say that was a legally approved HMRC valid scheme and you'd sign off on it as good practice"
HMRC: "Permission denied. Next!"

Scenario 2:
Contractor: "I want to earn my money through a company who then pay me a trivial amount back as legitimate income but give me lots of big loans that coincidentally come to about 90% of my earned money and I have no deadline to repay those loans"
HMRC: "We'll approve it if you sign this document saying that you agree that if you haven't repaid the loans in full in 5 years then we can treat the loans as personal income and retrospectively charge you tax, NI, interest and, at our discretion, penalties. Oh, and please sign this agreement that we can treat this as a secured charge on your home in case you conveniently have no money available to pay the tax at the time."
Contractor: "Can I get back to you on that?"

[NotAllThere]

Scenario 3:

Contractor: anything at all, no matter how reasonable
HMRC: denied!

[eek]

The problem is that it's like speeding at over 100mph, there WAS a good chance you'll not get caught but if you do then you're going to get a proportionately large punishment by the police and court.

Being very careful not to reveal current clientco but don't bet on that anymore.


HMRC now can and do check tax returns against savings and expenditure.....

[Old Greg]

Read this first: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/avoidance/tempted.pdf and then look for a decent accountancy firm or umbrella company

I'm glad you didn't specify that the umbrella company had to be decent.