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Recent content by Ebenezer
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Lorraine Kelly wins £1.2m tax case against HMRC over ITV work
Good for her. I'm actually god's gift to C++, I merely portray the part of a beerswilling layabout for the benefit of the client. -
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New car on PCP or lease - tax question
Agreed, but please don’t buy a knackered old Jag like the poster above as this will turn you into That bloke in the pub who bangs on about how his Jag cost less than a new Ford Fiesta That bloke waiting for the AA in the freezing rain by the side of the M6, smug in the knowledge that all the...- Ebenezer
- Post #17
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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New car on PCP or lease - tax question
Quite, PCP seems to have had the effect of convincing a large number of people that buying a new car isn't ridiculous. Prior to all this, I think the main purpose of new cars was to let Barry from accounts drive around in a new ride which made him feel a bit less despondent about the futility...- Ebenezer
- Post #9
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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New car on PCP or lease - tax question
You might need to give this a bit more thought; if you can't afford to buy the car you want for cash you should probably be thinking about your priorities. In addition you will almost certainly spend more on depreciation of the new car than you would on fixing of the old one.- Ebenezer
- Post #7
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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The continuing nonsense of "Take Home Pay"
I have an alternative take on this which might also be of use to new contractors: If you have lunch at Hawksmoor every day and you're a permanent employee, you will be paying for this out of your salary. If you have lunch at Hawksmoor every day and you're a contractor, you will be paying for...- Ebenezer
- Post #60
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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Becoming a contractor - mortgage help
I was worried about this, ended up paying the lenders SVR for about 18 months before realising I could remortgage with the same lender by clicking a few buttons on their website. That said, if I was doing this again, my last act before chucking in the perm job might have been to secure a...- Ebenezer
- Post #9
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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IR35 in reality
Don't know if this is threadjacking, but what's this business about laptops and phones being "excluded" from consideration in the checklist? I've been at places (private sector) where it was explicit that permies got both of the above and contractors got neither.- Ebenezer
- Post #35
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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The continuing nonsense of "Take Home Pay"
I think you're being trolled. FWIW I have had at least one permanent job where all of the below were employer provided, and several where most of them were. This was in the "good old days" when the BIK rules weren't what they are today. In fact, why the hell am I contracting??- Ebenezer
- Post #51
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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Splitting up travel expenses
Well, because I'm not a disguised permie, of course. Seriously though, this is one of the big wins of FreeAgent etc; the fact that you can do stuff like this without the intervention of the accountant to help you track how much you're spending on what. I suspect my outgoings are a bit higher...- Ebenezer
- Post #8
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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Setting up a workplace pension without excessive costs
It's possible that YANCOTBAC if dealing charges are an issue though; on any reasonable deal size it's probably better to suck up the £1.50/£5/£10/whatever in exchange for a fixed (or capped) annual platform charge. Once again, Compare the UK’s cheapest online brokers is recommended reading.- Ebenezer
- Post #32
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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Setting up a workplace pension without excessive costs
I suspect Aegon's "corporate entertainment" budget is rather more generous than Cavendish Online's! Regarding Hargreaves Lansdown, yes their charges are a bit excessive - they're roughly the same as the IPSE scheme but with a wider choice of funds - but I have heard it said that there are...- Ebenezer
- Post #27
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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Splitting up travel expenses
So, I've been maintaining separate Charts of Account for Travel - Client, Travel - Training, and Travel - Other. (the last one is mostly interviews, and I don't go to a lot of them). The reason I do this is that only the first of these is subject to the 24-month rule, and the only second is...- Ebenezer
- Thread
- Replies: 8
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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Day Trading Shares as a UK Individual inside a Stocks and Shares ISA.
I think the reason FX is popular with the amateurs is that you need very little capital to get started, most of the heavily advertised platforms will allow you to start losing money with as little as £100 in margin. "Trading forums" exhibit massive survivor bias; you never hear from the ones who...- Ebenezer
- Post #23
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
Some years ago, I had the pleasure of doing quite a bit of work for Her Majesty's Government. Naturally, I ended up with a number of the contractors who where there at the same time in my "LinkedIn network". Imagine my surprise to see three or four of them claiming to have done stuff that was...- Ebenezer
- Post #1,404
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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PSA: Sharing Amazon Prime from Personal to Business account
Well, I guess the reason I've been using a separate account - with a separate email address - rather than doing any of these other things is paranoia about getting the payment methods mixed up. I'm pretty strict about not mixing business and personal spending in general, and the separate...- Ebenezer
- Post #7
- Forum: Business / Contracts
