Re: If you keep poking the pig with a stick
Full disclosure: I'm a well paid contractor.
The main issue for me with ir35 isn't the additional tax burden or even lack of employee rights, it's a combination of that change in the client->contractor relationship and the effect it has on my business.
For example, I don't like being told how to work. I'm good at what I do for a reason, and that reason isn't that I do exactly what some clueless middle management tool tells me to do. They give me work, and I do it, I even help others do their bit (especially if it supports me completing my work).
Converting to an umbrella company and pseudo-employee status appears to be giving the managers of my clients the impression that I suddenly work for them as a regular employee. Sure I still have the right to bugger off as I always did, but this has really confused the relationship.
I also had plans for my business, to grow it and branch out into other areas, mainly funded by the contract income from my clients. By forcing me to take all that income as PAYE into my personal account immediately starves my company of funds and effectively shuts it down.
I'm left with the option of either a) trying to find another role that is outside ir35 or b) close my business and throw all my plans in the bin.
It *is* poorly thought out and implemented - there are many 'blanket' appraisals going around under the guise of individual assessments as well, which is against HMRC policy - but clients don't seem to mind breaking *that* rule.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
