Reply to: Accountants (Brooksons) says I'm outside IR35.. is that just sales talk?

[Fred Bloggs]

It's really very simple, Brooksons are expensive for what they do and they have baggage no matter how you dress it up. There are specialist accountancy practises without the ex-MSC baggage for a lot less every month and you can pay QDOS for their TLC35 insurance. Job done.

[Lewis]

If you want to save some money join the QDOS freelance club for about £40 (or take out one of their other IR35 products) and you get three contract reviews a year for free. They even did mine the same day.

[malvolio]

Well I'm still well below average then at £300

That's still £19.5k for three months, or £78k for a year though... Very roughly £11k a year extra tax if you wind up inside IR35. Surely that's worth a day's net income?

[BoredBloke]

Well I'm still well below average then at £300

[malvolio]

More like 0.6%. And not everybody here is on £430/day.

The average day rate is seemingly around £410 - blame all those City types I guess - and a three month is actually 13 x 5 day weeks. Less than 1% off the top to avoid IR35 doesn't seem like too much to me. Put your business head on rather than the Scrooge one most people seem to use and it's quite a good return in fact.

[Hex]

Oh, and it's 'Cotterill' by the way.

Cottrell in fact!

[chicane]

And I mean, £180 - wow! What percentage is that of the average three-month £27,000-value contract then... about 0.006% or threabouts?

More like 0.6%. And not everybody here is on £430/day.

[malvolio]

Qdos are better than Bauer & Cottrill + cheeper. You can take out their insurance on the back of their review + they will negotiate changes for you included in the price of about £50 instead of the rest who charge anything upwards of £180 or more in some cases.

I have used both Qdos & Bauer & Cottrill and each time Qdos got the job done quicker and cheaper than Bauer & Cottrill.

Which goes against everything everyone has always said about B&C, so glad you cleared that up for us. Oh, and it's 'Cotterill' by the way.

And I mean, £180 - wow! What percentage is that of the average three-month £27,000-value contract then... about 0.006% or threabouts?

[Epiphone]

Qdos are better than Bauer & Cottrill + cheeper. You can take out their insurance on the back of their review + they will negotiate changes for you included in the price of about £50 instead of the rest who charge anything upwards of £180 or more in some cases.

I have used both Qdos & Bauer & Cottrill and each time Qdos got the job done quicker and cheaper than Bauer & Cottrill.

B&C do all the agency negotiating though which is worth a few quid.

[Pacciae]

There are quite a few reasonably priced independant services who will review contracts for IR35 status.

Some names for you:
Bauer and Cottrell
Accountax
QDOS
Lawspeed
AbbeyTax

I've used Bauer and Cottrell and AbbeyTax, both seemed good.

Qdos are better than Bauer & Cottrill + cheeper. You can take out their insurance on the back of their review + they will negotiate changes for you included in the price of about £50 instead of the rest who charge anything upwards of £180 or more in some cases.

I have used both Qdos & Bauer & Cottrill and each time Qdos got the job done quicker and cheaper than Bauer & Cottrill.

[Hex]

There are quite a few reasonably priced independant services who will review contracts for IR35 status.

Some names for you:
Bauer and Cottrell
Accountax
QDOS
Lawspeed
AbbeyTax

I've used Bauer and Cottrell and AbbeyTax, both seemed good.

[somewebguy]

D&C: Direction and control. Does your boss come in and tell you what to do or do they give you a job spec and say do that. Do you have to ask for time off or do you say I wont be available on Monday?
That sort of thing.

We have projects that need to doing and it is basically up to me how they get done. But there are also a lot of other smaller jobs that need doing on a regular basis. Those jobs can come from a variety of places around the clients business. They go onto a change log and get prioritised. It is up to me to decide how to manage my work load based on the priorities.

In terms of asking for time off. hmm.. as a matter of courtesy I guess I would need to ask. Although for the time I have had off so far, I have not asked, I have just told them that I am not coming in. But that is because it is because of sickness or family emergencies.

MOO: Mutuality of obligation. Do you have to accept any work they offer you or do you have a specific area of work.

I work in only in the area of my specialty - web development. If there is something that I feel I am not qualified to do, then I say that it is not my area of expertise. But for anything that is within my area of expertise, I guess I have to accept, based on the priorities mentioned in my first point.

RoS: Right of substitution. Is it possible for you to send in a replacement or sub out the work.

In my contract it states that I can send a replacement. However, I have not actually done this when I have been unavailable due to sickness.

Go read up on these subjects they are fundamental to your IR35 status.

About the only thing I got from your original post was that as you have had "expert" advice from Brooksons you would be exempt from IR35 penalty charges were you found to fall inside. HMRC may question Brooksons expertise status.

yes, that is what I am getting at. I have read and reread lots of info and am still as confused as ever. There are so many areas of grey. As I am not a lawyer or accountant, I would have to reply on the advice of one. Brooksons claim to be accountants that specalise in this area, so I figured there advise would be good. But as they seem to suffer from no real accountability to the advice that they give, then everything they tell me could just to be "close a sale" and get me onto their books.

So basically I can't trust them and need to speak to an independent lawyer. I guess that is what you are all telling me!

[Fred Bloggs]

Brooksons and long barge pole, I usually use those words in the same sentence. They were a disaster last april when the MSC laws came in. 00's of guys went weeks without money. My 2 cents.

[Chugnut]

Yes, I remember the panicking! Cheers Mal.

[malvolio]

Well, they were affected by the MSC rules and they had to change their business model.

So why were all these providers desperately trying to establish their status as non-MSC's post-legislation? Even various accountants were being accused of being MSCs. If they were just providing limiteds from that point forward, they'd be nothing to worry about, no?

Maybe it was just a headless chicken convention.

The rules were, in typical NL fashion, badly drafted, and people panicked slightly. They've been clarified and properly scoped now. And you can still have an MSC, but they can only do PAYE so are indistinguishable from Umbrellas.

Brooksons were contractor accountants before they were MSCs, so I suspect they're pretty much up to speed on IR35 anyway