Reply to: Client cannot make a permie - contractor distinction

[TheRightStuff]

Damn right. Retaining your customer over time is a pretty good sign of a successful business, wouldn't you say? BTW, one of the early major IR35 wins was someone who'd been with the same client for 7 years...

I assume you mean the contractor won and not the IR.

[ratewhore]

RightStuff, I'm surprised you even had to ask the question.

And why is everyone talking about holidays? Holidays are irrelevent. You should be thinking in business terms, not personal. You are not available for work, not on holiday.

An old client of mine knew I was off on a weeks training course once so they asked me to put it down as training in their system. I told them I would do that if they paid for my training and funnily enough, the issue disappeared. (And no, I wouldn't have done that anyway).

It's my business and my training and if I'm not available for work, I'm not available for work. The client doesn't need to know why but they probably need to know when for their planning.

All IMHO of course...

[Jog On]

My accountant fought an IR35 case for one of his other clients last year. They won it on the fact that he could send in someone else to fill the role if he was unavailable.

Surely if you want to take some holiday you could subcontract the work out to someone else in your absence?

How much holiday you are 'entitled to' and when you can/can't take it should be up to you as the company director of your company (who you are employed by) - should it not?

[Orangutan]

My (current) situation:-
An much holiday as I want, provided there is sufficient cover for the work to be done, entered on corporate calendar (not a request/authorise system) for communication purposes only

Sickness - no work, no pay, no problem, no questions (apart from human decency in asking how I am) mind you I'd have to be pretty ill not to come to work !

Hours - they pay for 8 hours a day, they get 8 hours a day, I plan my hours around the clients core hours, but its up to me when I arrive and when I leave. Other cons here on older contracts have hours stated in their contracts - not me.

[malvolio]

I don't think it matters at all from ir35 point of view if you stay with a client for a long time.

Damn right. Retaining your customer over time is a pretty good sign of a successful business, wouldn't you say? BTW, one of the early major IR35 wins was someone who'd been with the same client for 7 years...

[Cowboy Bob]

My longest perm position was 18 months.
I can't comprehend 3.5 years.

Ditto

[wendigo100]

Mine was 9.5 years... how I managed it I'll never know.... it's been 2.5 years max until redundancy for permie positions ever since.

Is that your Plan B, redundancy payments?

[wendigo100]

I forewarn the client about holidays, etc, so they can do their planning. Nothing wrong with that. The bloke who built my house extension did the same with me. Unless you feck up, that shouldn't be an IR35 issue.

As for not having more holidays than permies, it might be a rule of thumb they use. As XTC says, if they plan to have you for 3 months, and in that time you only do 2 months work, it is unlikely you'll complete the task that they hired you for.

But the bit about telling people they must work 8:45am to 6pm - why has he done this? Is there a problem with people not pulling their weight?

[timh]

My longest permie job was 2.5 years...

My longest perm position was 18 months.
I can't comprehend 3.5 years.

[XTC]

I thought in theory we weren't entitled to any holidays. For example if we are employed for a 3 month contract, then we work for those 3 months. So the client has the right to refuse you to have any time off at all. Thats the way i understood it to be, but then I never read my contracts.

[rootsnall]

Just spoke to SJD Accountancy and they have said the 3 yrs at the client is irrelevant. I am not employed by them but by the LTD.
They did however say that I shouldn't be entering sickness/holiday into the clients system.

3 years on one contract does make a nice juicy target for the taxman though !

[gingerjedi]

I have a similar situation but the client insists it’s so they can book man hours against different projects rather than tracking individuals for personnel reasons, they have also asked about any holidays I plan to take but again they insist it’s so they can cover any periods where they have low cover levels.

I'm still not entirely comfortable with it but I can see why they need this info, after all they are running a business just like me.

[scooterscot]

My longest permie job was 2.5 years...

[TheRightStuff]

Just spoke to SJD Accountancy and they have said the 3 yrs at the client is irrelevant. I am not employed by them but by the LTD.
They did however say that I shouldn't be entering sickness/holiday into the clients system.

[andy]

I don't think it matters at all from ir35 point of view if you stay with a client for a long time.