Why a legal contract?

[northernladuk]

My question was more from the point of tax-man coming knocking. When he says he wants to root through contracts, if a freelance developer turns round and says, "root through what?????" he say "your contracts" and freelancer says, in a tree hugging, all is cool in the world kinda way, "naaaaah maaaannnnnnn. I don't do contracts bro... Word is bond"

What's the impact? What they gonna step up to now?

Have you heard of IR35? They are going to try prove you work for the company and tax you as such.

If you are not bothered or affected by that then I guess you could say you don't need a legal contract for the tax man... but that isn't the reason you get a contract drawn up.

[OnceStonedRose]

two letters two numbers.

The question is what's he gonna do. Am I legally bound to have a legal contract in place for every piece of work I undertake for a customer and if so, why? Why doesn't a taxi driver take my name, address, company number etc.. adnd have his people talk to my people?

[kingcook]

two letters two numbers.

The question is what's he gonna do. Am I legally bound to have a legal contract in place for every piece of work I undertake for a customer and if so, why? Why doesn't a taxi driver take my name, address, company number etc.. adnd have his people talk to my people?

I think you've smoked too much pot during your time here on planet Earth.

[OnceStonedRose]

My arse about tit point is, could we not be covered/shown to be "out" of EyeArrgggg 35 by having no contract? I'm just a grafter grafting. No sweaty contract, no solicitors rinsing coin off me.. Jus a guy banging keys.

[OnceStonedRose]

I think you've smoked too much pot during your time here on planet Earth.

That's your informed response? Backed up with pure insight and thought?

[northernladuk]

My arse about tit point is, could we not be covered/shown to be "out" of EyeArrgggg 35 by having no contract? I'm just a grafter grafting. No sweaty contract, no solicitors rinsing coin off me.. Jus a guy banging keys.

You could but most of us would not find work if we insisted on no contract. You are not thinking about this one very carefully are you? We also use a tax method that requires us to be businesses so we have to act like businesses... Playing the game innit.

[kingcook]

That's your informed response? Backed up with pure insight and thought?

Yep

If you don't want contracts, sweet - don't do them

[Ignis Fatuus]

I do think that this is an interesting question, albeit a theoretical one since the practicality is that agents will insist on a contract, because that is where they put the clauses that say that anything bad that happens will happen to you and not to them.

However, I have worked to a Purchase Order rather than a contract (not in the UK) and I suppose I'm not alone there. I did actually think that that resembled the kind of situation described by the OP: the 1-page PO described the price, the work, the timescale, and who was responsible for making it so; and left everything else unspecified. I suppose you could say that there was an implied contract, but I felt that the implied contract was to fulfil the PO, no more and no less than that. And that made it business-to-business.

A deeper point, more implicit than explicit from the OP, is the question of why there should be any problem, why there is almost a presumption of employment unless proved otherwise. On one level it is obvious why: the application of the rather large tax called NIC is so twisted and idiotic that it becomes a battle of words between taxpayers and taxgatherers. But at another level, do we not have a right to insist that it should not be a problem: we make a deal to do some work for money, and some simple and consistent rules tell us the tax on it. We the people are the dog, HMRC are the tail, but the wrong party is doing the wagging: our earning is primary and its taxation is secondary. We should not be forced into modifying our behaviour and our contracts in response to the government's ever-changing rules. And they should not be faffing about trying to maximise their take by reclassifying the nature of our work, to a classification that pays more tax, a lot more.

[mudskipper]

I've got a couple of clients I do a few days work for here and there. I've never bothered with a formal contract - just an email agreeing the engagement and payment terms. Any bit of work longer than a couple of weeks I think I'd want a contract. Your window cleaner may not have one, but your double glazing company will have.

[malvolio]

A "Contract" is not a piece of paper, it's a Contract in the proper sense of the word, where you promise to deliver something in return for something. It can be a 15 page borefest, a purchase Order, an email or a handshake. So talk of working without a contract - even between taxi driver and passenger - is simply uninformed bollocks.

And the only reason you write it all down is for when things go wrong, or things happen that you didn't antiicipate. If you want to take that risk then fine, it's your call - but there is still a legal contract in place.