New housing for outer London

[Andrew McKay]

I'm interested in learning more about these workarounds. Can to elaborate?

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[Andrew McKay]

You really aren't in touch with reality.

Yes there are definitely many "IT consultants" who are fly-by-night cowboys. Every industry has those.

But there are a great many, in fact the majority, who have come upon hard times thru no fault of their own.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[Grunff]

Hmmmm...Really? How about some real life examples?

I've elaborated plenty on my statement further down the thread - which bits in particular do you disagree with?

[Dave Plowman]

These things are cyclical. The tories managed plenty of boom and burst when they were in charge, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't have continued.

Are they? Historically we always fair worse than Germany or the US in a world recession, but this time it seems not.

You can blame low inflation for this, I'm afraid. And, of course, the privatization of what were once mutual organizations - all those shareholder profits have to come from somewhere.

But surely it's good Tory policy to force you back into work - any work - the "get on your bike" syndrome?

But the world *is* in a recession. And didn't MacMillan talk about the Tories selling off the family silver when some of the nationalized industries were near given away to the city?

So pensioners were better off under the Tories?

They'd be very unusual pigeons if they'd managed to stay away for this length of time.

[tim]

at a guess:

They used to be SE.

the IR decided that they couldn't be SE.

They got around it by becoming Ltd.

Hello IR35.

Tim

[Dave Plowman]

Or make sure you work for several different employers each year - say six.

[Owain]

"Dave Plowman" wrote | > Remember pensioners getting an extra 80p per week from our generous | > Gordon? And his ability to triple-count figures so as to make his | > sums add up? | So pensioners were better off under the Tories?

Many were. Gordon took the dividend tax credit which was useful to people on low incomes with modest investments.

Owain

[Dave Plowman]

Why should pensioners be exempt from paying tax?

[tim]

They're not. If they have a large enough income they pay the same tax as anyone else.

However, it's generally accepted that a tax system should be progressive (the more that you earn the larger the percentage of your total income you should pay) what GB has done is to make the system much more regressive so people on very low incomes can end up paying a much higher percentage of their income in tax than someone on a large income.

Tim

[Dave Plowman]

Then Brown has simply continued what the Tories started by moving taxes from income dependant to fixed. It seems this is what the voters want.

[Andrew McKay]

Err no. Legislation was brought in in the late 80's which forced SE to go Ltd. I'm afraid that I wasn't a contractor then and the reasons escape me, but basically it was no longer possible to be SE and offering contractual services.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[geoff]

In message , Andrew McKay writes

At an all time low in the gold rate IIRC

But he seems to keep his head down and hope nobody notices. How often do you see anything about him on the news? ... the second most powerful man in the government

[geoff]

In message , Dave Plowman writes

Actually, I think it has an awful lot to do with criminal accounting practices in the US (Enron etc) and a couple of planes crashing into a couple of skyscrapers ... which has blown confidence in the stock market

[Toby]

This group seems to be increasingly populated with ex-IT pros turned renovators. (My old telco popped after turning £9m into £300k for the fourth time running.)

Toby.

[Steve Firth]

At present, and god I'm keeping my fingers crossed about this, pensioners in Italy are not taxed.

[Steve Firth]

That's not true. It's perfectly possible to be self employed (sole trader) and to offer contractual services. What it's not possible to do is to offer those services via an agency unless one goes PAYE.

Most contractors can't be arsed to find their own work and construct their own contracts, they prefer to work via agencies. By doing this they fall foul of IR35, which is largely their own fault.

[Jim Ley]

It's a major investment decision, and one you're free to move around, the OP chose it/didn't move it, I'm taking that inaction as being happy with it, perhaps I should've said "couldn't care enough about" but that sounds even more reckless.

That's a fair comment, but not something that can be blamed on Gordon Brown.

No he didn't, he taxed dividend income in pension funds, the important difference being that pensions are not required to invest in anything that is taxed like that, so it's simply their investment decision, the taxing reduces the returns from that investment class. A mass desertion of pensions from shares would've almost certainly had Gordon running to make them attractive again

Odd, I'd expect more of your IFA's, but I'm just not keen on always blaming the government, I fully agree with you about forced purchasing of Annuities is outrageous, and I hope that will soon be abolished, but again that's not something new of Gordon, so we can't directly blame him (we could complain that he's not changed it, but that's slightly different.)

That's true, the figures aren't perfect, but being independant international figures, it's not something we can blame Gordon on, now is it?

It's a sensible hedge for them to keep their economies from the shocks of sudden currency fluctuation, for them it makes sense, for the UK needing investment being relatively safe from sudden currency fluctuation, holding cash doesn't make sense, it should be invested (or rather reduced debt)

Purely on the idea of taxing dividends, that's the one thing he's got any say on in all the arguments... I don't see why certain (inefficient) methods of saving for retirement should get a tax break, when others don't.

Jim.

[geoff]

They all are - they have nothing else to do

[RichardS]

I'm not sure about that - I do know of one or two contractors who are sole traders but contract through an agency, and are not PAYE. A lot of agencies wouldn't touch them, though, because they do not have the protection of an intermediate (ie Ltd company) , which means that if they were assessed to be an employee of the agency then the agency would be chased for PAYE and NI at the full employment rates, rather than reduced sole trader rates.

The presence or otherwise of an agency is largely irrelevant for the purposes of IR35 - you can fall foul of it on a direct contract just as easily as through an agency. The "intermediate" part of "provision of services through an intermediate" refers to the limited company, and not the agency.

cheers Richard

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Flat Eric]

Fair enough - I think this qualifies for back of beyond!

Was this in the UK? After a period of travelling in Central & S America a few years ago I can relate to these sort of hardships.

Sounds like you've had a pretty rough time. Hope you manage to get things sorted and on your feet quickly.

Since this has got completely off topic now, there is a source of help/strength that you may well never have considered. It is inadequate to just drop these links in really, but I don't want to go on. For what it's worth, here they are; have a read of them and explore the site further if you wish. Have a think about it. Its totally up to you.

?passage=MATT+11:28&language=english&version=NIV&showfn=on&showxref=onAll the best