* Posts by ChrisB

6 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Nov 2008

IR35 tax is a huge failure

ChrisB

@AC 08:44

I presume you're being ironic, but just in case:-

I'll be happy to pay tax and NICs just like an employee the day I become entitled to ALL the same benefits as an employee. Since that will never happen, I'd rather have my company treated tax-wise as any other small business in the UK. Like a huge number of freelancers I choose to be a freelancer and have no desire to become an employee of any of my clients. It is a way of life I have chosen and I also accept all the risks and downsides and the upside of the potential rewards that go with that risk - just like any other business I hope to profit from my efforts but if I don't then I don't expect to be bailed out by state benefits.

All that most freelancers want is a level playing field which treats all the participants in the same way. IR35 was supposed to protect the Friday-to-Monday workers (who are mostly at a lower level of skills) - it didn't and doesn't. What it does do is make it impossible for freelancers to ensure that their business model can operate to the same rules as the likes of EDS and Accenture, KPMG and indeed the local PC repair shop. That is unfair in the non-Blair/Brown sense of the word.

ChrisB

But let's not just ignore it.

PCG must and will continue the fight to ensure that freelancers operate on a level playing field with the rest of the consultancy market.

Although PCG's FoI request has shown that the tax take on IR35 investigations is paltry (and probably results in a net cost to UK taxpayers) there's still a lot of work to do to ensure that freelancers can trade without ridiculous, punitive, vindictive and fundamentally flawed red-tape being put in our way.

And yes, I am an interested party - I am a freelancer and also the current Chairman of PCG.

HP targets compulsory redundancies at EDS UK

ChrisB

@AC re "Twat"

He's a union spokesman - unions don't like contractors because we won't join them and pay loads of union dues to keep their leaders in £200k a year jobs (see today's Times).

Also why on Earth would you even want more than a handshake if your contract is terminated - surely, as a contractor, that's the nature of the beast?

Dogs and arson feature in top 10 data recovery disasters

ChrisB
Thumb Up

No 10 - good dog!

10 out of 10 for good taste I say!

www.smackberry.co.uk explains why

Plod punishes PC-reliant businesses

ChrisB

@ Dex

Unfortunately this has not been correct since October 2007 when part III of RIPA came into force. See http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/ripa/encryption/disclosure-of-keys/ for details.

Taurid meteors promise Guy Fawkes fireball show

ChrisB
Paris Hilton

Let me be...

...the first to welcome our Tauridian overlords. Provided we can see them, of course.

Paris - because I just lost my El Reg virginity.