Reply to: The Official Budget 2016 thread

[AtW]

"Mr Duncan Smith made it clear in his letter than he believes the Government should instead be focussing on reducing benefits for pensioners which have largely been protected during the austerity drive."

Iain Duncan Smith resigns as Work and Pensions Secretary - Telegraph

Some of the original idea like not paying £10 a week in perpetuity for a hand rail after it's been fitted made sense. But the execution was rank stupidity

This certainly should not have been done in budget that increased higher rate thresholds (even though this kicks in from next year).

Gidiot just hoped nobody would notice, chances are that will be a lot less noticed had he gone ahead with pension relief removal.

[bobspud]

Gidiot was a cretin to take money from disabled (!) people, that should not have happened in the first place.

Some of the original idea like not paying £10 a week in perpetuity for a hand rail after it's been fitted made sense. But the execution was rank stupidity

[AtW]

Gidiot was a cretin to take money from disabled (!) people, that should not have happened in the first place.

[bobspud]

Working out quite well so far: Iain Duncan Smith resigns as Work and Pensions Secretary over disability benefit cuts | UK Politics | News | The Independent

Yeah that's not going to end well...

I have a lot of time for IDS if he has felt the need to go it's going to impact Gideon

[AtW]

Working out quite well so far: Iain Duncan Smith resigns as Work and Pensions Secretary over disability benefit cuts | UK Politics | News | The Independent

Good one, albeit unexpected, even though I reckon Ian got enough of Gidiots tulip

[darmstadt]

Working out quite well so far: Iain Duncan Smith resigns as Work and Pensions Secretary over disability benefit cuts | UK Politics | News | The Independent

[bobspud]

An interesting theory, but unless there is a legal recourse for anyone getting the classification wrong, then it's not going to work.

And I'd be surprised if there is.

You are thinking about it wrong. There doesn't need to be a recourse against a person, just a legal challenge in a court that shows that the contract was outside IR35 when the opposite party said otherwise ..

That's enough to to show the money was deducted under false pretences and can be reclaimed together with costs.

You can even go through the the entire contract and then sue them afterwards

Given that HMRC have been loosing cases where they were sure the contractor was inside IR35 hand over fist for a decade how long will it take for someone to be told they are inside when the legal profession can easily demonstrate otherwise ?

And what's going to be the consequences of the other side winning are they really going to stand there yelling "yay spuds a disguised employee and we are not paying him statutory sick pay NI or pension payments..."

This has a lot more in our favour than they realise now all we need is a decent legal team and this can scare the tulip out of Gideon faster than mugging a bunch of disabled people

[m0n1k3r]

I'm a director not an employee

I'm a NED of another company. My director service contract makes it quite clear that I am employed by that company as a director, with an annual lump sum remuneration.

A director is not a job. It is a position with certain responsibilities. When you work on your company's strategic objectives and policies, appoint senior management and account for the company's activities to stakeholders (such as shareholders) then you operate in the capacity of a director. When you are hands-on, on-site to write software, do accounting or what you happen to do on a day to day basis, then you are not operating in the capacity of a director but rather as an individual expert - a consultant - employed by the employee-owned company. The duties of a director are in the Companies Act.

Think about it. It is a good argument for when recruiters call you 'self employed' (which is you yourself registering your personal UTR as involved in a trade on a personal basis) or whether you would be interested in a 'permanent position' then you know what to say - you are employed and you are quite happy where you are and you have the greatest boss in the world. That tend to confuse the lot. It is also a good argument against 'seeing through' a one person company as both the government and agencies tend to do.

Since somebody in this thread mentioned moving abroad - while the UK Companies Act allows directors to use the director opt outs even when they are doing the same things that a normal employee would, the same is not true for many other countries. They tend to make a clear distinction between the activities of a director and those of somebody who is not one.

[m0n1k3r]

IIRC, Oracle are implementing it.

Oracle India, I'm certain.

[DaveB]

An interesting theory, but unless there is a legal recourse for anyone getting the classification wrong, then it's not going to work.

And I'd be surprised if there is.

It is a damn good question to put to them when negotiating a contract though.

Will you expect me to take unpaid time away from the office during scheduled closures or will I be be paid along with the other employees?

[TheFaQQer]

Now its the department that gets to make the in/out decision its also going to be their fault when they get it wrong and the great thing is that they can be wrong in many directions, opening up a whole ambulance chasing industry of claiming back wrongly deducted money from companies that were wrongly engaged as inside IR35 while they are really outside IR35.

All a contractor needs is a government department to tell them that they are inside IR35, only to then break one of the three indicators of an employee/er relationship.

The best example of this will be the Mutually of Obligation.

So when they then tell you that they don't want you for 2 weeks over christmas so you are not getting paid for that time or they remove you from site when your project is finished.

They actually shoot themselves in the foot with the very thing that makes you a good flexible resource when you are outside IR35...

An interesting theory, but unless there is a legal recourse for anyone getting the classification wrong, then it's not going to work.

And I'd be surprised if there is.

[AtW]

This isn't about ER, which has quite clear rules (that remain easy to meet). It's about having a capital distribution reclassified as a dividend distribution.

Yup, at the increased dividend tax rates too

[jamesbrown]

CGT reducing down to 20% will take some of the pain off it, though it's still double the 10% ER rate.

Or, if ER is denied then the liquidation proceeds are denied as capital gains as a whole, i.e. must be taken as income? The mind boggles.

This isn't about ER, which has quite clear rules (that remain easy to meet). It's about having a capital distribution reclassified as a dividend distribution.

[bobspud]

I think there are far too many headless chickens on this thread and the hysteria needs to stop...

if a Social Worker can win an IR35 investigation in what can only be described as one of the most tightly controlled professions that there is, then the rest of you that are sat in government based IT project work will be fine.

You are also missing a really bloody obvious point:

IR35 hinges on this case as part of the definition of employed vs freelance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_...onal_Insurance

Up until this week its been our problem to make sure we are outside IR35 and it gets bloody when we are wrong.

BUT

Now its the department that gets to make the in/out decision its also going to be their fault when they get it wrong and the great thing is that they can be wrong in many directions, opening up a whole ambulance chasing industry of claiming back wrongly deducted money from companies that were wrongly engaged as inside IR35 while they are really outside IR35.

All a contractor needs is a government department to tell them that they are inside IR35, only to then break one of the three indicators of an employee/er relationship.

The best example of this will be the Mutually of Obligation.

So when they then tell you that they don't want you for 2 weeks over christmas so you are not getting paid for that time or they remove you from site when your project is finished.

They actually shoot themselves in the foot with the very thing that makes you a good flexible resource when you are outside IR35...

[AtW]

CGT reducing down to 20% will take some of the pain off it, though it's still double the 10% ER rate.

Or, if ER is denied then the liquidation proceeds are denied as capital gains as a whole, i.e. must be taken as income? The mind boggles.

AFAIK they denied treatment of that money for capital gains purposes, so it won't be 20% CGT either.