There may be a council voucher scheme which is probably not well publicised and is almost secret. If you have a van, but use it as a local resident rather than as a trader, you present one of your vouchers to gain entry. The council will give you a limited supply to match the 'reasonable' disposal needs of the average citizen.
Found this out the hard way after filling a rented Transit one weekend. (Scheme administered from main council offices only open on weekdays. FFS.)
I did say they have countervailing benefits.
Now let's see a school year is 34 weeks and my daughter in the 6th form gets taught lessons 17 ! hours per week...
And usually I'm still driving home at 9-45 pm on a Friday night.
Not heard any rumours, :-(
Until 1 year ago when the tax charge on my 5 year old Fiat Ulysse (market vlaue £4,5k) went up to £7.4k (reduction in my allowances
*each & every year*) I had not paid too much attention to my tax affairs just left it to the accountant. Now the car is off the books, so the chancellor gets nowt, I claim the allowance instead. My salary is down to £7k and we draw dividends quarterly.If the rumours come to fruition I'll "light the blue touchpaper" and retire immediately ! My employees can go on the dole and my customers (about 100 hospitals) can deal with me on a self employed basis on my terms, or not at all.
DG
In article , Christian McArdle writes
Blame the Kiwi and Aussie contractors - it was they who collectively started the 100% dividend scam. My accountant specifically advised me not to do this because the Contributions Agency would successfully challenge it. Our Antipodean friends knew that any NI they paid was money lost since they didn't trust any so-called reciprocal NI arrangements, and at the first hint of 'trouble' they could nip back home.
As for having a 'stable economy' I don't regard rocketing house prices, notably in the London area (where the poster of the 'stable economy' lives) is an indication of a stable economy. Even at 15% interest the repayments on a 1 bed flat in London in 1991 was less than it is today at todays asset prices. Watch out for that EU directive 'forcing Noo Labour to impose Schedule A or CGT against their will' on us. If you think they can't - try and buy some Vapona strips (amongst other things) and ask yourself, 'Now who took these off the shelves'.
In article , Tony Bryer writes
Since the latter do very nicely thank you for a not-too-difficult management job, why would they want to 'go freelance'.
You get free copy of Plumbing and Heating Installer ????
In article , PoP writes
This seems to vary from benefit office to office across the country and they *only* look at the last 2 years. In 1990 after 2 years in a hot country employed at *local*, taxable rates, I returned to the UK and was told that despite having paid 17 years contributions, because I had paid nothing in the last 2 years (but
61% into the Fijian tax system), I had effectively NO contribution record for unemployment benefit. This only encourages me to minimise my NI payments in retaliation.And the DG of the BBC
Not true, only money *received* counts for IR35. If the agency you have to use goes bust owing you 3 months (has happened to me) then no IR35 is payable, but VAT is, but can be reclaimed (eventually), but it *has* to paid initially. I remind every whinging permie that they get their money every month and don't even need to know about employers NI. At least two of the people I currently work with have had over 2 months on the sick out of the last
It's fair enough to close a tax loophole but it was done in the most bureaucratic way imaginable, designed to catch some people and leave the loophole open for others.
The way that Brown cashed in on corporate greed in the 3G auctions (a stealth tax on mobile users if ever there was one) was also a contributing factor to the boom and bust in the IT consulting market.
cheers, Pete.
You think the US is heavily unionised?
So there are no flies on the IR?
That tax change was definitely a case of winners and losers. I ended up £60p.m better off so it was obviously a long overdue change
Certainly sounds a bit crap that you as a bona fide DIY-er can't take rubble at the tip (or do they just insist you stick it all in a car boot instead of a van?)
It's certainly very variable according to locality though; I took a hired tranny stuffed with junk and rubble down to ours the other day; they said "are you trade?", I said "no" (true); and they let me in... David
I don't know. They told me I had to go to the council offices in town (every single car park in town has a height restriction, even the open air one). There I can buy tipping licences for 50 quid each. A van load or a trailer load uses one voucher. Minimum purchase 10 (seriously!). You can only use the tip at certain times of day (Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10:15 until
10:19).The alternative is to use my wife's car, which is a rather clean internally Nissan Micra. I think I'll just dump the rubble in the council car park, instead.
Christian.
You just need to remember to say the opposite when you go to the builder's merchants, and remember to have a bundle of tenners in the pocket of the ancient filthy jeans with the hole in the crotch area and worn below the beer storage facility such as to show the "cleavage" at the rear. This is worth at least 15% discount as long as you remember that everybody's name is "mate" and not to use the gold card.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
It's a city now, don't forget.
I'd dump it in their reception.
At £50 a pop it's cheaper to get a skip and you don't waste time waiting
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
To be honest I don't know.
At American trade shows we've had problems with the Unions. you are only allowed to carry in to the show 2 bags maximum, any more must be handled by an official contractor who must use union labour. Want your kit to appear on the booth in time to set it up? Speak to the union guy. We did have one instance of the union guy pointing out how inconvenient it would be if our packaging stored out the back of the show "Went on fire". Ever heard of the Teamsters?
I imagine it's quite heavily unionised. But I think the success of the American economy has more to do with the size of the market coupled with the high cost of shipping in competing products, access to very cheap immigrant labour, protectionism, a low level of regulation, and the parlous state of the competing economies after WW2.
DG
In certain sectors, unfortunately it still is.
The recent debacle regarding steel was a demonstration of the untenability.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Why bother? A wheelie-bin-load a week gets rid of a lot of stuff over time and you only have to haul it to the front gate (which is quite an effort in itself when we've got a good load in ours :-)
FWIW skip-bags are quite a good vfm way of getting rid of intermediate amounts of rubbish (too much for the car/trailer, not enough to be worth hiring a skip). Though I agree it goes against the DIY ethos (having to pay for it, that is ;-)
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