The All Things IR35 Related Thread

Soldato
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A rather small firm I’ve been contracting with sporadically for the last year or so asked me to continue inside IR35 from now on. Was surprised to hear this but apparently they’ve just decided that everyone is inside.

Depending on your definition of "rather small", they might even be exempt?
 
Soldato
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Bucks and Edinburgh
25 employees.

If their turnover is below £10.2m then that number of employees is enough to make them small enough to be exempt. The rules are you have to meet two of the following:

1) Annual turnover is no more than £10.2m
2) Balance sheet no more than £5.1m
3) No more than 50 employees

If the company meets two of the above then they are exempt and determination depends on you.
 
Soldato
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If their turnover is below £10.2m then that number of employees is enough to make them small enough to be exempt. The rules are you have to meet two of the following:

1) Annual turnover is no more than £10.2m
2) Balance sheet no more than £5.1m
3) No more than 50 employees

If the company meets two of the above then they are exempt and determination depends on you.

They definitely don't meet 1 and 2.
 
Soldato
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We have a Ltd co. hospitality business that has been closed since last March, so the boss has been working for an agency doing HGV driving pretty much full time for the last few months and we have been invoicing his hours from the Ltd company.

IR35 looks to be knocking this on the head come April and he's been asked if he wants to go on payroll or go via an umbrella company. Now, with the new BSB season coming up (even behind closed doors we'll still have some work) and with other irons in the fire, he will probably be dropping the driving from full time to 'as and when' he has periods with no other work.

What's going to be the best/easiest/cost effective route to take going forward, PAYE or sign up to an Umbrella Co?
 
Soldato
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Thread bump: Some industrial scale abuse of Umbrella companies being reported here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57021128

This seems particularly bad in that the contract staff doing the work aren't even told (they see via their payslips !) and the Umbrella companies are being farmed off to people with no clue of the liabilities involved.
jesus
 
Man of Honour
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My last place, albeit in a different department, had a couple of contractors working for them, also for 10 years. Just mental. And the only reason they were there that long is they'd put themselves in that situation and couldn't get rid of them, as they were the only ones with the knowledge to do that job.
Old post but just flicking through the past couple of pages on this thread. At my previous employer, we had loads of long term contractors. One guy, who I somehow convinced to go perm after taking over the team, had been a contractor there for 18(!) years. Within the department, there were about a dozen that had been there for 6 years plus that gradually got whittled down over time.

I've missed the boat on the gravy train but have just recently started contracting myself. I setup my own LTD (to get the ducks lined up), but in the end took an Inside IR35 contract. It means paying a ton of tax but the rates are still very attractive compared to perm work, especially considering how relatively little responsibility some roles have. As a contractor, assuming I were to work the same number of days in a year I'll probably earn about £50k gross more than I did in a more senior perm role, even accounting for pension and bonus. Obviously there's no sick pay, death in service bla bla so it's a slight gamble on remaining healthy but on average I probably took like 1-2 days off sick a year as a perm, even if I was off ill for two weeks as a contractor you make that money back PDQ.

You've then also got the fact that as a contractor you can keep moving around getting paid an exorbitant day rate despite [potentially] adding little value in the early days, as you are new you haven't got the same amount of baggage built up over the years as a perm. Sure, people expect you to hit the ground running moreso than a perm but over say a 5 year period the amount of time spent 'onboarding' with minimal expectations on your output is probably longer as a contractor. I mean as long as you are not a complete idiot you can probably survive at least two months at most places before you get 'found out', and during that time you've earned the average UK annual salary.

So I guess as a newcomer I can judge this objectively and I think even going inside IR35 contracting seems quite lucrative, just not as ridiculous as outside IR35.
 
Soldato
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I went perm in August 2019, and to be honest, it's one of the best things I've done.
IM still contractor.

Its soo much better than perm for me.

Better pay, more hlidays and more flexibility.

@Jokester


I have been doing fine even during a pandemic which i am grateful for.

I love the new way of working in outside ir35.

Means i am way more fleixble, work anywhere i want. answer to no one and have a clear defined set of tasks to do on my contract
 
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Man of Honour
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Is that better pay including paying into a pension?

I was on a decent day rate (£650 outside) and although my take home is now less, overall I feel I'm better off. I'm also going to be enjoying 18 weeks paid parental leave this year which would not have been possible contracting, plus I have my own leave to take on top of that too.

Contracting works for some and rates can get silly, but for me I definitely feel I'm better off.
 
Commissario
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So how has everyone been impacted by this then?

The grace period is now over for businesses, any contractors now being treated differently or business as usual?
We have to do a QDOS assessment every ~6 months but they keep deeming us outside so continuing as normal.
 
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