State of the Market

[simes]

Thanks fellas.

'Life' does seem to be truly stacked against us in every respect.

The HMRC stated that this ruling would not affect true contractors. And from the HMRC having lost 90% of the cases in IR35 court battles and investigations, now 99% of contractors are 'found' to be Inside.

Oh well, back to film extra work for the foreseeable.

[Unix]

Thanks fellas.

'Life' does seem to be truly stacked against us in every respect.

The HMRC stated that this ruling would not affect true contractors. And from the HMRC having lost 90% of the cases in IR35 court battles and investigations, now 99% of contractors are 'found' to be Inside.

Oh well, back to film extra work for the foreseeable.

Source please? All the contractors at my client are deemed outside and there are a lot of them, so unless the 1% all work at my client co it sounds like bulltulip.

[edison]

Source please? All the contractors at my client are deemed outside and there are a lot of them, so unless the 1% all work at my client co it sounds like bulltulip.

Maybe the OP was referring to the likes of HMRC themselves or DWP where vast majority of contractors are inside? At the last few clients I've worked with, almost everyone was outside apart from a few people who were clearly doing BAU type roles.

So it depends on the client really. Those that are very risk averse/introduced a blanket ban have few outside contractors. Those who take a more measured approach still use outside contractors.

My sample is only small but from what I see, it's the medium size firms who appear more willing to use outside contractors rather than large and often global companies.

[eek]

In other news - someone who knows the recruitment market is saying that Contract work is doing way better than permanent recruitment

Maybe the OP was referring to the likes of HMRC themselves or DWP where vast majority of contractors are inside? At the last few clients I've worked with, almost everyone was outside apart from a few people who were clearly doing BAU type roles.

So it depends on the client really. Those that are very risk averse/introduced a blanket ban have few outside contractors. Those who take a more measured approach still use outside contractors.

My sample is only small but from what I see, it's the medium size firms who appear more willing to use outside contractors rather than large and often global companies.

Global firms are likely to have been caught out by the IRS in the past so will be very careful and take the easiest (everyone inside) approach

[northernladuk]

Source please? All the contractors at my client are deemed outside and there are a lot of them, so unless the 1% all work at my client co it sounds like bulltulip.

I, and everyone else read that as a glib statement rather than a fact. It's only you that read anything in to it and jumped on it. It appears more like around 35% more inside 6 months after it hit April 2021 and it's risen to about 70% (depending on which poll you believe) of people through umbrellas than there was before.

[sreed]

I went from someone who always contracted outside (fintech startups in the ZIRP era) to now almost exclusively inside.

Perhaps I’m stretching for a silver lining here but personally, I’ve never been better incentivised to shovel everything above minimum pay into my SIPP using salary sacrifice and never paid as few taxes as I’m paying now, in spite of the incessant Tory tax raids and sneaky hikes.

The hike to 60k annual allowance and carry forward will let me keep this up for a couple of more years but even once the CF is exhausted, I should still be able to minimise the 40% tax take.

Granted it only works because we’re pretty frugal and have the partner’s income to play with as well, but it’s got to the point where inside is almost always as good or better compared to outside for the kind of roles that I can get. So I’ve made my peace with this general shift to inside contracts.

[simes]

I, and everyone else read that as a glib statement rather than a fact.

Indeed it was meant to glib, illustrative, and something just to ram home a painful story.

However, as one option for a source, considering today's (by 13:20 on Monday) tally of 18 Project Manager roles on Jobserve, 16 are Inside. So for now, and of that timestamped source, 90% are Inside.

[simes]

I went from someone who always contracted outside (fintech startups in the ZIRP era) to now almost exclusively inside.
Granted it only works because we’re pretty frugal and have the partner’s income to play with as well, but it’s got to the point where inside is almost always as good or better compared to outside for the kind of roles that I can get. So I’ve made my peace with this general shift to inside contracts.

That could certainly work if your LtdCo was perhaps not created solely for Contracting, or especially Contracting with one client.

As part of the move to follow HMRCs earlier advice to Contractors as to just how one could remain Outside, one such thrust was to demonstrate that one's LtdCo had more than one stream of revenue. Nothing new there. But for mine, as well as the odd invoiceable task, I made some investments to create other (plural) lines of revenue, but that which today still need investment and maintenance.

The advice duly followed of course, the goalposts have shifted to render all of that to now be totally redundant and impossible to sustain long term. One wonders what tomorrow's* rules might be.

(*tomorrow's - Again, no source on changes of rules or indeed timelines. Just to make a story sound 'good'.)

[northernladuk]

Indeed it was meant to glib, illustrative, and something just to ram home a painful story.

However, as one option for a source, considering today's (by 13:20 on Monday) tally of 18 Project Manager roles on Jobserve, 16 are Inside. So for now, and of that timestamped source, 90% are Inside.

I defended you to Unix so only fair I defend Unix's point. Gathering stats you are going to use on the forum using 18 roles on jobserve is next to useless and is going to open yourself to people like Unix ripping you a new one.

[jamesbrown]

That could certainly work if your LtdCo was perhaps not created solely for Contracting, or especially Contracting with one client.

As part of the move to follow HMRCs earlier advice to Contractors as to just how one could remain Outside, one such thrust was to demonstrate that one's LtdCo had more than one stream of revenue. Nothing new there. But for mine, as well as the odd invoiceable task, I made some investments to create other (plural) lines of revenue, but that which today still need investment and maintenance.

The advice duly followed of course, the goalposts have shifted to render all of that to now be totally redundant and impossible to sustain long term. One wonders what tomorrow's* rules might be.

(*tomorrow's - Again, no source on changes of rules or indeed timelines. Just to make a story sound 'good'.)

Having additional revenue streams, even with the best case scenario of concurrent clients, has never been a major factor w/r to IR35 as each contract is assessed independently. At most, it’s a modest pointer w/r to being in business. Investment income is completely irrelevant.