Crackdown on personal service companies could raise £400m in tax

[BolshieBastard]

I actually agree on a contract limit - 18 months seems sensible to me. I know someone at the Foreign Office who's been a "contractor" for 9 years now (and counting). Those examples have ruined what was a good business model.

I actually wouldnt have a problem with a limit of 52 weeks or less. The majority of projects and other IT work that Ive been involved with have rarely gone over 52 weeks.One financial institution had a 52 week on site limit but the project last 14 months so they had to get internal dispensation to keep the contractors on.

Far too many contractors, and clients it must be said, think in terms of staying in situ for 3, 4 or more years. You're clearly integrated into the client organisation if you're on site for more than 12 months despite what some on here may say.

[BolshieBastard]

I don't think it will kill it dead. Contractors will either have suck it up, go permie, retire, run their plan B full-time, or emigrate. Most can't retire and the last two options are too scary for more than a minority. If there aren't enough jobs for everyone to go permie, there is no choice but to contract for what you can get.

How stupid can some people get!? If contractors go permie, retire, go to plan b or emigrate, they arent ******* contractors then, are they? D'oh!

[jamesbrown]

Lighten up man

[northernladuk]

Question is where are all these permie roles we are supposed to be taking come from? Clients won't be converting contracted riles in to perms in the numbers required so even going perm isn't going to be an option for some.

[SandyD]

Most likely we will be on agencies payroll if this happens, other options includes contracting abroad.
Mind you didn't they change the rules in Holland and now most contractors have to go through this kind of employment agency payroll and have to pay about 30% tax?

[TheFaQQer]

I actually wouldnt have a problem with a limit of 2 years or less. The majority of projects and other IT work that Ive been involved with have rarely gone over 2 years.

FTFY to meet my own personal situation.

That's the trouble with setting an arbitrary deadline - if you work in a different area where the projects run for years, then what works for one group will not work for others.

For my friend who works as a freelance in advertising, four weeks is a long role for him, so he's not fussed about it.

[Whorty]

Stitched up there pal. I got £8k after two years.

I went contracting after taking redundancy from a media company ... salary was 72k. Pay-off was 3 months notice, 1 month redundancy per year of service plus 20% bonus. This was 10 years ago. More recently I worked on a finance dept transformation project and the staff there were offered a very similar package .... larger companies still pay out when they want to downsize!

[d000hg]

How stupid can some people get!? If contractors go permie, retire, go to plan b or emigrate, they arent ******* contractors then, are they? D'oh!

Maybe you should've read my whole post before making a fool of yourself; I argued why those options would not be practical for the majority of us.

[lilelvis2000]

Cameron and the cleft nosed one killing the little business man so companies will be forced to hire them or hire someone from the big consultancies..like the Indian ones. hmmmm

I'm not sure where they (the cons) get the idea they are small business friendly..they aren't. Look at all the crap I now have to do. PAYE I now have to declare weekly my wages. My accountant has to login each week. Previously I did that quarterly and at the end of the year adjusted it. Simple!

And the new dividend rules will be a nightmare.

Still when Cameron says we are lowering corporation tax people jump. However, it will only help the big boys. Little guys will get screwed over.

Who re-elected these guys anyway?

[SpontaneousOrder]

When the lights go out there will be nothing to be fair about.....

reminds me of a scene...

There were not many lights on the earth below. The countryside was an empty black sheet, with a few
occasional flickers in the windows of some government structures, and the trembling glow of candles in
the windows of thriftless homes. Most of the rural population had long since been reduced to the life of
those ages when artificial light was an exorbitant luxury, and a sunset put an end to human activity. The
towns were like scattered puddles, left behind by a receding tide, still holding some precious drops of
electricity, but drying out in a desert of rations, quotas, controls and power-conservation rules.

But when the place that had once been the source of the tide—New York City—rose in the distance
before them, it was still extending its lights to the sky, still defying the primordial darkness, almost as if, in
an ultimate effort, in a final appeal for help, it were now stretching its arms to the plane that was crossing
its sky. Involuntarily, they sat up, as if at respectful attention at the deathbed of what had been greatness.
Looking down, they could see the last convulsions: the lights of the cars were darting through the streets,
like animals trapped in a maze, frantically seeking an exit, the bridges were jammed with cars, the
approaches to the bridges were veins of massed headlights, glittering bottlenecks stopping all motion, and
the desperate screaming of sirens reached faintly to the height of the plane. The news of the continent's
severed artery had now engulfed the city, men were deserting their posts, trying, in panic, to abandon
New York, seeking escape where all roads were cut off and escape was no longer possible.

The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly, with the abruptness of a shudder, as
if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a
moment to realize that the panic had reached the power stations—and that the lights of New York had
gone out.