Reply to: Another one from the IR

[malvolio]

Incidentally....


http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/index.php?...092&Itemid=594
Do join in...

[xoggoth]

Re malvolio's post, that sort of smear seems to be typical of this government. I recall at a PCG meeting in Brighton some years ago that some threats by one unbalanced sort against Dim Prawn (no it wasn't me!) were used against the PCG as a whole. Of course if minorities cause problems the same government will immediately say they are an unrepresentative minority.

The government are scum. Have I said that before?

[malvolio]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

OK, you're wrong. On every point, come to that.

They do not represent EBs, never have, never will. EBs have no influence on policy. OTOH, as one example, 400 Hays contractors are outside IR35 because of changes that PCG persuaded their board to make to certain banking contracts. Want to try that kind of influence unaided?

It is arguable now that the opt out is a bad thing. At the time, it was a very good thing and if, as I suspect, the opt-out can be used to walk around S134c, it remains a good thing. Nobody can force you to use it anyway - do nothing at all and you are opted in, so what's the problem?

The site is free, membership of the PCG costs £200-ish, and for that you get around £400 of commercial iinsurances at normal rates plus about another £500 worth of added value services that may be useful. One reason for that is that the bulk discount gets the price own and bundling it keeps us out of the grasp of the FSA, who would impose a huge and expensive regulatory burden for no real benefit.

Nobody censors anything, nobody deletes posts (even less than they do here), moderation is only about protecting the site from libel suits or accusations of things like racism. (For example, we had a bit of grief when lobbying against uncontrolled immigration of IT staff at fourpence an hour (another success everyone forgets about) when some MP-led Civil Servant used one of the posts as evidence that we were a racist organisation. Sadly he did so in a series of meetings led by Gurdial Rai on behalf of the PCG, who, being a Sikh himself, was easily able to face down that particular point. Since then, though, we've been a bit sensitive about such things). But if you don't visit, you won't know that, you can only rely on rumours from people who have got it wrong who are hardly the best referees.

Feel free to challenge any or all, but the reality is they are a well-respected group these days and their real work is nothing at all like you portray it. By all means start up a second lobbying group if you want, and once you get to around 15k members and have spent five years getting inside the establishment, you can take over...

[Lucifer Box]

"The PCG does have a voice within HMG and it is listened to. If you want to influence it, get in there and start influencing..."

So has IR 35 gone then? What is their line on this story? What would you class as their biggest success to date and have their been any recent successes?

I would have thought the s660 appeal so far.

[BoredBloke]

"The PCG does have a voice within HMG and it is listened to. If you want to influence it, get in there and start influencing..."

So has IR 35 gone then? What is their line on this story? What would you class as their biggest success to date and have their been any recent successes?

[BoredBloke]

The thing is, I wouldn't mind the tax so much if

1 - I could predict it - because the rules change on a day to day basis this is not the case.

2 - didn't feel like I was being singled out for special treatment. In the case of IR35, some IR drone decides that you have to pay more tax than anybody else. That doesn't seem fair to me.

3 - you didn't see vast sums of my money being given to druggies in prison becuase the state would not allow them to have their illegal drugs - and a million and 1 other money wasting schemes.

[malvolio]

Oi! Denny!!

I think we should all get together with a petition and write to the PGC demanding that they take our views on board and that without our views being represented their lobbying efforts are not truly indicative of what contractors want.

At the moment the PGC tend to make their own agenda and they listen to EB trade associations (who don't represent Contractors interests). They are more than happy to keep everyone happy.

Why not join and post your opinions directly (and, incidentally, find out what they are really doing rather than just guessing). FWIW, they do not listen to EBs in any shape or form when setting policy: in fact the people that run the PCG are trying to work out how to take EBs out of the loop altogether, or at least emascualte them so they don't screw up a perfectly good working realtionship.

Snag is, 90% of the contractors only see them as an insurance company, and a different 90% won't join on principle. They can hardly represent people who don't join, can they?

The PCG does have a voice within HMG and it is listened to. If you want to influence it, get in there and start influencing...

And just out of interest, you are not saying anything I and others haven't been saying to them for the last few years.

[snaw]

good ol' USA ??

Probably in a nutshell, no. Contract market is almost non existant, and certainly not if you've no visa and there's definitely hostility towards workers on visa's. And you'll probably get paid more here than you would there (Well if I compare London vs NYC).

Then there's medical insurance ... Don't get me wrong, loved living there but personally I think a lot of people who whinge here would be in for a massive reality check if they tried living in a few different countries. GB is still a tw@t though.

[Bagpuss]

Thanks to the microsoft case that's no longer true

[andy]

Does anyone have any suggestions of countries to emmigrate to where :

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs'
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment

?

good ol' USA ??

[BoredBloke]

I've just written to my Labour MP asking for him to tell me how this sits with Browns encouraging enterprise comments. www.writetothem.com

It might be handy for others to do this, especially those in a tory seat or a marginal seat!

[snaw]

US

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins - check
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living - pretty much nope (COntracting that is, permie not that much better either)
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs' - nope
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment - check

Australia

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins - check (As far as I remember)
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living - sort of, but you get taxed tuliploads more and earn a fraction of what you get here.
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs' - check
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment - check

Holland

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins - nope
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living - nope
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs' - nope
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment - mostly, check.

From what I've seen.

BTW This, if it happens, is complete bollox. WTF does is that GB fecker always out to get us?

[Troll]

Does anyone have any suggestions of countries to emmigrate to where :

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs'
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment

?

If we knew- we would already be there by now

[shoes]

Does anyone have any suggestions of countries to emmigrate to where :

1, tax rules are not changing every 5 mins
2, you can get a decent wedge take home with IT contracting relative to cost of living
3, you're unlikely to encounter hostility from the locals due to being a foreigner 'coming over here taking our jobs'
4, english speaking, at least in the work environment

?

[meridian]

Drainage contractors that depend on maintaining a good reputation to stay in business?

To stay in business? Nope. To make business far easier than having a bad reputation? Absolutely. But that's not the reason they chose to go limited. It's your opinion, remember, that having a limited is only suitable for building a business based on reputation. Other contractors see different uses for the ltd vehicle.

Ask any Ansell (or Gretal) commercial lawyer if its worth suing for slander should some uppity middle manager terminate us early sullying our 'reputation'. Most would say no - in fact all, I would say. Mainly due to cost which would be prohibative. The other reason is because the judges couldn't really put a price on what we have lost and would conceivably conclude that we are merely suffering from a wounded ego and loss of fees not reputation. That's the issue with reputation.

How does this square with the (excellent) advice provided to zamzummim? The point of suing for slander or threatening to do so isn't usually to win damages, but to recover the reputation and therefore to go to the next contract with a clean slate.