After Osbourne's attack on IT contractors

[BrilloPad]

It used to be that the feathers were extracted with least hissing.

Now the hissing is online why should the government care?

When do we march on Downing Street?

[Gumbo Robot]

Carry on as usual.

The deal breaker for me is if they abolish tax relief on T&S.

Move closer to the work? Not that simple - I know plenty of people in London who have to do long commutes & overnight stays from time to time.

And I don't think I could bear doing this on a permanent basis. I tend to look at my contracts as a series of sprints - work my butt off for 6 months or so, bank lots of money, go on holiday & relax for a bit then rinse & repeat.

[tractor]

....

He is right though.

I'd like you all to go into a pub, or anywhere else where you find a collection of ordinary working non-contractor people and explain how outraged you are that you're now going to have to pay 7.5% tax on part of your income and how disgusting it is that as high earning tax avoidiers you've been singled out and how the extra risk you take justifies paying tax at a lower rate than them even though you typically earn twice as much. And then see how much sympathy you get.

But why would you even consider doing that? This, IMHO was one of the original problems that brought contractors to the notice of both NL and the general public who do not even comprehend what most of us did. All you ever got from Joe Public was 'I don't understand, I don't want to be an expert, I just want it to work'.

If all the mouthy muppets had kept their big mouths shut both about what they were grossing and what tax scams they were participating in, there would not have been the animosity that there was at the end of the nineties.

We would have still become a target though simply because of the lobbying by the big consultancies whose margin we were and still are significantly undercutting. Given that people like Timms had worked through said consultancies for years didn't help either. Couple that with the Prawn/Union connection and we were sure to be

Unfortunately, people never learn and there are at least as many mouthy morons around today as there were then.

[d000hg]

You are one very odd IT contractor. I suspect you are a paid-up perma-temp under IR35, probably making up the difference by grassing up real contractors to HMR&C and receiving a bounty.

Nope, I take most of my income as dividends so the changes will hit me. I would prefer it for personal reasons if we remained in a privileged position of paying less tax per £ income, but I can't justify why I deserve that privilege or why removing it is 'unfair'.

1. We are not as rich as politicians
2. we are not as rich as bankers
3. we are not as rich as agents

More importantly, we have to do something called "work". You might need to google that....

Hmm, many of us earn more than an MP salary, and MPs do typically actually work very long hours. I've no idea what agents earn but I doubt most of them are on £50k+, the company makes the profit surely.

It's quite clear you don't pay voluntary tax/NI on your dividends and you don't pay all your companies profit out as PAYE, so you are a hypocrite and no one here will ever take you seriously.

Sorry, but no. I take advantage of an entirely legal and uncontroversial feature of working through my own company. This benefit seems likely to be removed and while I'd prefer it wasn't, there's no argument why I was entitled to it in the first place.

[Bozwell]

I'm confused. Why would anyone bother contracting an a similar income pre tax to a perm employee? If that's a situation you are even close to, be a permie! The holiday and other employee benefits alone would make you better off as a permie even before the planned tax changes.

[PurpleGorilla]

1. We are not as rich as politicians
2. we are not as rich as bankers
3. we are not as rich as agents

4. we are not as rich as baby boomers

[TykeMerc]

He's a tedious twunt.

That's never been in doubt, he just backs it up frequently with hypocritical pontifications and occasional bursts of "faith".

There's quite a sense of entitlement amongst contractors. Apparently we're entitled to earn more money for a better working lifestyle, and to tax breaks as well.

Utter and total hogwash.
I am entitled to charge a rate that the market will tolerate for my skills and willingness to provide them as a flexible resource to clients that are happy to pay for them.
I take a risk on every contract that I accept and when the situation calls for it, the work is over, changed or cancelled I stop charging the client. Like many of us I have had contracts pulled with no notice when the projects have been cancelled or the scope changed, that's part of my "better working lifestyle", I have spent time benched when I'd rather be working and I've worked to deliver projects when I'd rather have time off, that's all part of the contractor lot which I've been happy with for over 2 decades.

Do I earn more as a contractor than as a permy? Debatable when I add it up over time.
Do I enjoy tax breaks? Debatable, without the tax position then there's no offset to the commercial risks I take.

d000hg if you are actually a contractor (which I doubt) and practice what you preach rather than a posturing troll then you're more stupid than you come across in your posts, which is a massive achievement, maybe there's a market for that.

[tractor]

....

Nope, I take most of my income as dividends so the changes will hit me. I would prefer it for personal reasons if we remained in a privileged position of paying less tax per £ income, but I can't justify why I deserve that privilege or why removing it is 'unfair'.

Hmm, many of us earn more than an MP salary, and MPs do typically actually work very long hours. I've no idea what agents earn but I doubt most of them are on £50k+, the company makes the profit surely.

Sorry, but no. I take advantage of an entirely legal and uncontroversial feature of working through my own company. This benefit seems likely to be removed and while I'd prefer it wasn't, there's no argument why I was entitled to it in the first place.

Then why with every post, do you attempt to make it controversial?

We are all entitled to it! Soon we will not be.

Very few, least of all you are recognising the double taxation element of all this.

[expat]

When a jealous permie whines about how good contractors have it, we always reply that there is nothing stopping them from becoming a contractor if they think it's better. I would now say the same to those who say that permie is now better than contracting: if it really is better for you, just do it.

Although I originally went contracting for the money, I found out pretty quickly that it suits me in so many other ways that may be more important than money. I don't reckon I'll ever go permie again.

That does not preclude other options though, most obviously other countries. I do a lot of work in other countries anyway and I used to find it a pain that countries like NL and Switzerland made me work "local"; now I might prefer them, and just pay all my taxes there instead.

In particular I note that NL gives you a 30% allowance, and Switzerland allows travel and second-home expenses. So the (IMHO virtually certain) removal of T&S will make them more valuable work locations, even excluding the ever more attractive prospect of out-and-out emigration.

[d000hg]

Tyke, you're just deluded if you don't think you are in a favourable tax position pound-for-pound with a salaried worker earning the same gross as your Ltd bills.

You charge a premium for the nature of the service you provide, which covers the risk and the benefit to the client. You do not somehow deserve a tax benefit on top of that for being some sort of white knight to the economy.

Get over yourself.