Re: Anonymous Contractor
a person is either an employee or a contractor
Except that plainly isn't true. Companies started making people who were *explicitly* even previously employees doing the same job become contractors for the sole purpose of not paying tax they aught pay, people were taking sick pay from the state (i.e. taxpayers) rather than the company who should have been paying it and all sorts of nonsense. That's how bad it got.
The whole thing is *supposed* to be coercive. Everybody involved is supposed to look at the situation and say "oh shit, that doesn't work for us, lets not do the contracting thing and pretend and employee isn't an employee because the tax implications of not keeping it legit are catastrophic" and those employees are supposed to look at it and say to their employer "I'm not playing that game with you, it's not worth my time". Again, to make absolutely clear, it's *supposed* to be coercive to all parties that's why when you come under it then it becomes a horrible nightmare.
Now, if what we're really talking is people who shouldn't be considered employees but are under the system that's a whole different argument/discussion, but it's one that it's utterly impossible to have because of all the noise around people moaning about it doing the job it's supposed to be doing.
It's not that I don't have sympathy, because I do - I got my current permanent job via a freelancing job, I've been there and I get why people freelance. My thing is we need to start by separating the two issues out, telling the people who IR35 actually targets to stop ruining freelancing and contracting and do one; only then can we seriously get into the detail of what the actual problem is.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
