Why we MUST ditch our lazy attitude to finding work through agents and agencies

[DodgyAgent]

So Thai ladyboys and furries then

My Granny makes me £500 a day and the kids another £1500 between them so I am OK Jack

[eek]

The only boom in the NE is public sector, so you will have to wait for Komrade Korbyn to create 1,000,000 non-jobs there again.

Not quite. Many consultancies use the North East as an onshore development hub...

Labour is slightly cheaper than elsewhere while office rents are also lower..

[SpontaneousOrder]

As were many of the colleagues I've worked with at various clients... In fact the reason why we live where we do is because it has decent communication links (can get round Europe via the local airport and Amsterdam, London by train is 2 and a bit hours)..

What sucks is that I live in Suffolk, and London by train is 2.5 hours

[NibblyPig]

Not quite. Many consultancies use the North East as an onshore development hub...

Labour is slightly cheaper than elsewhere while office rents are also lower..

Last I checked the only permie jobs are leeds or hull.

Hull makes swindon look like a buzzing social hub

[AtW]

Last I checked the only permie jobs are leeds or hull.

Hull makes swindon look like a buzzing social hub

Hell Happyness and Hull...

[ClothCap]

I fully agree with the OP and I am currently building a network via old contacts, fellow consultants and general networking. Already got a few leads for smaller items of work with potential repeat business.

To me that will provide a more varied and relaxed working model with the potential to scale into a more semi-retired arrangement. Obviously not as lucrative but better for the soul.

More IR35-friendly and no dealing with agencies who are now more than ever to be avoided if they are to become portals for HMRC to start snooping on you.

[Sysman]

Not exactly. Surely even HMRC won't be able to dictate how you do your hair?

Don't give them ideas

[Sysman]

Ni is a nasty ittle bugger too

if your daily commute is, lets say, 4 hours. And that commute costs you heading towards 10k a year after tax, then when you factor in the lack of permie perks, the marginal increase in take home after those expenses (remember we'll be in 40% territory), AND the fact that you're commuting 4 hours a day...

Then it's arguably a far better deal to commute only 1.5 hours per day and chill as a permie.

That'll be 40% plus employer's and employee's NI.

Let's look at the table at Wiki - NI Contribution Rates

As in other texts floating around, the article concentrates on the low paid:

For 2015-16 there is therefore up to £304.80 payable by someone who has not reached the point where they are liable for Income Tax.

...

There is a further complexity in as much as the calculation for employees has to be made on each pay period - so a weekly paid employee will face a charge in any week where earnings exceed one fifty-second of the annual limit. It is therefore possible for a charge to Employees NI to arise on someone who earns below the limit on an annual basis but who has occasional payments above the weekly limit.

What nobody looks at is the other end of the scale. Consider someone who earns their yearly income tax allowance (nominally £10,600 but it depends on the tax code) in month 1 of the tax year, at which point the contract finishes. A contractor subject to the proposed scheme will pay full whack NI (EE and ER) for that month plus tax, based on a yearly earning of 12 times that month's pay.

If they don't work again in the tax year, that tax will come back, but the NI won't.

[expat]

That'll be 40% plus employer's and employee's NI.

Let's look at the table at Wiki - NI Contribution Rates

As in other texts floating around, the article concentrates on the low paid:



What nobody looks at is the other end of the scale. Consider someone who earns their yearly income tax allowance (nominally £10,600 but it depends on the tax code) in month 1 of the tax year, at which point the contract finishes. A contractor subject to the proposed scheme will pay full whack NI (EE and ER) for that month plus tax, based on a yearly earning of 12 times that month's pay.

If they don't work again in the tax year, that tax will come back, but the NI won't.

The 40% tax threshold matches the employee's NI upper limit, so when 40% tax kicks in, all but 2% of the EEs disappears.

NICs are calculated on a yearly basis for directors, so it doesn't matter when you earn it from that point of view.

[Sysman]

Or moving to where the work is?

This has always been the bedrock of the two year rule, surely?

I'm going to take a slightly controversial view here, if eighty percent of the work is in London then why should the taxpayer subsidise us choosing to live in a cheaper area to have a bigger house?

The problem is that successive governments have centralised too much in London and a lot of folks simply cannot afford to move there.