Reply to: 'Crackdown' on brollies?

[eek]

Option 3 will clearly be the preferred option. Removing our pension rights under the guise of simplifying processes and cracking down on a few bad actors. Fill yer pension boots while you still can!

Oh when option 3 arrives the choice is go permanent or actually start a consultancy.

I don't think it will because agencies hate deemed payments - but the compliance firms will need to step up and offer solutions agencies can use to verify their members.

[Smoggy]

Option 3 will clearly be the preferred option. Removing our pension rights under the guise of simplifying processes and cracking down on a few bad actors. Fill yer pension boots while you still can!

[eek]

If option 3 ends up being HMRC's preferred option there is no incentive for any large agency to use an umbrella they would just put everyone on agency payroll and remove the hassle.

[Bluenose]

And literally the only reason a contractor would use an umbrella is to maximise their pension contributions.

[eek]

Is this the one where a bloke walks into a bar, that is 30% more expensive to drink IR35 IPA at than the last bar and then goes on to yell at everyone that the bar is shutting down but the Infosys bar across the road is open and will always be open, forever.

The landlord at this new place apparently has a heated swimming pool and pays 24% tax.

Not quite - it's more HMRC want every penny in tax and are very happy to screw contractors pensions if needs most (which is option 3 - deemed payments where the agency is responsible for NI (especially Employers NI) but not pensions)

And literally the only reason a contractor would use an umbrella is to maximise their pension contributions.

I will admit that the end point is that its cheaper to outsource the lot to India.

[Bluenose]

Is this the one where a bloke walks into a bar, that is 30% more expensive to drink IR35 IPA at than the last bar and then goes on to yell at everyone that the bar is shutting down but the Infosys bar across the road is open and will always be open, forever.

The landlord at this new place apparently has a heated swimming pool and pays 24% tax.

[eek]

All that talk about people exposing each other and not a single nod to Simon Mac for exposing himself on a CUK do. How rude.

To be frank I had better plans for my day - and was trying to keep away from the industry but sadly someone forced my hand.

[northernladuk]

All that talk about people exposing each other and not a single nod to Simon Mac for exposing himself on a CUK do. How rude.

[eek]

Fred will be quite welcome to join us and explain why he felt the need to dox eek when eek has all the evidence at his disposal (a fact that Fred might have missed…).

Oh if you check the linkedin post linked above - Fred seems to find the idea boring and is refusing to answer the questions (although I suspect CUK may be getting a legal letter tomorrow so note how everything above is just links to publicly available data.

I've screenshot and copied the reply below for convenience. For anyone like me who has over the past 15 years seen an awful lot of failed tax avoidance schemes tells you everything you need to know...

[cojak]

And some background

tax avoidance schemes need three things

a (vaguely plausible) method of not paying full tax
Marketing / salesmen
a means of getting their scheme past gatekeepers - and after 20 years with this new crackdown agencies are finally paying attention to how their workers are being paid. Hence the current focus on new and more advanced compliance schemes

And that leaves my final question - why is someone trying to so hard (to the extent of committing a criminal offence - albeit of little consequence) to avoid a bit of background history being pointed out.

Fred will be quite welcome to join us and explain why he felt the need to dox eek when eek has all the evidence at his disposal (a fact that Fred might have missed…).

[malvolio]

Private sector isn't much different. In addition if there's a round of redundancies, a few times I've seen permies get chopped not the contractors. Something to do with contractors being in a different cost center, which gets overlooked by management who think it's for the office cleaners

Close but no banana... Permies are paid out of revenue. Contractors are usually paid out of project budgets at some level. If a contractor is paid out of revenue budget then they are not really in a role that should be filled by a contractor*.

Also, like-for-like in terms of costs, a permie costs roughly 15% more than a contractor in the same job with their extra overheads, plus you have to pay them 12 months a year. Another couple of points routinely ignored by middle managers who have never really got their heads around cost accountancy.



* Again, that is the differentiator between contractors and office cleaners and the like, who are part of the overheads.

[eek]

And some background

tax avoidance schemes need three things

a (vaguely plausible) method of not paying full tax
Marketing / salesmen
a means of getting their scheme past gatekeepers - and after 20 years with this new crackdown agencies are finally paying attention to how their workers are being paid. Hence the current focus on new and more advanced compliance schemes

And that leaves my final question - why is someone trying to so hard (to the extent of committing a criminal offence - albeit of little consequence) to avoid a bit of background history being pointed out.

[eek]

It does feel like time to ask some question that have taken a lot of time to verify

can we talk about the 2 limited companies you had registered at 3rd Floor 44, Old Hall Street, Liverpool, England, L3 9PP at at same time that both ELITE MANAGEMENT & CONSULTANCY LIMITED (a tax avoidance scheme which appears in the HMRC scheme enquiries thread) and PAYECOMPARE LIMITED an umbrella “comparison” firm designed to sell the services of elite management and similar firms were registered there.

Edit (based on a question earlier today) - it's useful to read the Statement of administrator's proposal for Elite Management & Consultancy Limited because Section 2 line 3 tells you that 3rd Floor 44, Old Hall Street, Liverpool, England, L3 9PP was the office from Elite Management & Consultancy Limited operated and traded from. So this isn't an accountancy office with people registering their companies at their accountants - it's the office of an "umbrella" firm where someone who claims to be completely unconnected registered 2 separate companies.

extra links to help others with background https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbr...ease-help.html , https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbr...se-help-3.html

and it’s definitely the same small (950sq ft, 5-7 people max) office as the VOA’s valuation makes very clear so please don’t pretend they were separate offices on the same floor.

Now if that doesn’t work shall we talk about the LinkedIn profile of JM on the day you launched PayePass before it was cleansed (don’t stress I have time stamped screenshots) where he moved straight from elite management to PayePass or why AL (still up on LinkedIn) is so reticent to mention the “umbrella” he used to work for.

[cojak]

This wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would it?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benth...350487552-jmsz

And to think that Fred (NotBloggs) could have kept this in a little corner of CUK instead of trying to bully a poster into silence and have it spattered like cow muck all over LinkedIn.

(PS. Posted with Eek’s permission.)

[cojak]

And then someone who seems to work for Payepass checked out my linkedIn profile. He claims to have worked for an "umbrella" prior to joining payepass a year before it was started.

Now I wonder if that "umbrella" was the one based in the exact same room / office used by a company owned by Payepass's owner ... The dates look very familiar when I check out a particular HMRC enquiry thread...

Really? *strokes chin…*