Posts by Doctor Syntax 42414 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
Can your friend prove that HMRC had full and accurate details of the arrangement which they'll probably deny.
HMRC have an unlimited supply of brass neck. IIRC iIn the LimeIT case the investigator wrote a 2 page apology to the tribunal admitting he handled the case wrongly but still insisted that he was right.
" in reality were indistinguishable from employees"
at first glance indistinguishable from employees of the engaging company but in reality had no employee rights from that engager and had to make their own equivalent arrangements
FTFY
It's really amazing how many permies thought that but somehow never took the freelance path themselves.
"Isn't there a human rights law that states that new laws cannot be applied to events that predate those laws? Possibly that's only criminal law - not sure."
ISTR that at some point the Labour government introduced legislation which allowed HMRC to move the goalposts on taxation retrospectively.
"Forcing updates onto them is the stupid idea I have ever seen - especially drivers updates, but not only. It's not only IT professional but many others who may work self-employed or in very small companies with a few devices and no domains."
No, they're not forcing updates onto them. They're forcing repurchase of the Pro or enterprise versions.
"So I'm staying with Windows 7 for the foreseeable future, and at least until MS comes back to its senses and allows us as users/power users/admins control of exactly what updates get onto a PC."
What MS is saying is that you can have a free-update from your W7 Pro but only to something you don't really want. If you want W10 Pro you've got to buy it again. This is MS. Did you really think they'd changed their spots?
"We are all being returned to a pre-industrial status, where people are merely factors of production, and the (very) few capital owners are not encumbered by government 'interference'"
By pre-industrial I suppose you mean before the introduction of the factory system. What do you mean by "factors of production". In pre-industrial society craftsmen generally enjoyed a much higher status than they did under the factory system. It was the loss of that status that provoked the Luddite riots.
Thanks for a knowledgeable comment. But although the requirements for driver & vehicle licensing are well spelled out & sensible it's difficult to see why the requirement exists for a dispatcher to be licensed. This appears to be an area where technology could improve - for instance the suggestion of an app displaying current locations of taxis to ensure service. The dispatcher licensing appears to be an impediment to such improvement.
'Or simply
"I have no money and don't buy things"'
Or a flag that says "I have money and I buy things but if you shove an advert in my face I'll go out of my way to buy from someone else."
My preference is still for an add-in that, subject to a maximum bandwidth allowance, will accept some ads & send them straight to /dev/null. Everyone wins: the user doesn't see the ads, site and advertising network get paid because they don't know the ad wasn't seen and the advertiser doesn't lose potential sales by pissing off the users.
"the European Parliament called for it to be suspended. The commission has stopped short of doing that and instead is re-negotiating the deal."
Re-negotiating would have been much quicker (i.e. less then infinite time) if they'd suspended it in the interim.
As the saying goes, when you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
"we've got all this legacy code"
Often translates as: "It's paying the bills".
That's a powerful argument.
Note: I am not & never will be a VB6 coder.
That doesn't matter. You can find legacy code in all sorts of languages paying the bills, including the wage bill of its deriders as they work on all that new shiny - which, if it's good enough, will become legacy code in due course.
"Most of us have heard about the CPI and the RPI (with RPI including housing and energy if I remember correctly and is therefore higher than the CPI, which is why G.Brown got rid of it to hide his real inflation)."
I find it difficult to believe that he was consciously using it to hide inflation; I can only assume he thought it was a real measure. Although this may seem an irrational thought it would have been nothing like as irrational as believing RPI was a better measure of inflation and still letting the housing bubble grow.
"There's a concern of a cornered market."
I don;t know about the US but in Europe there's a good deal of regulatory stuff that new vehicle designs need to pass. Regulations about the isolation of safety-critical systems need to be added to this. That would avoid problems with future designs but getting it made retrospective might be difficult. With such regulation in place there'd be no issues about cornered markets; non-compliant vehicles wouldn't get into the market and manufacturers would have to start paying attention to introducing security at the design stage.
Back in June I had a letter from the GP to make an appointment giving one of three possibilities
Went onto the site & put in the credentials. Not recognised.
Phoned the 0345 number instead. Amazing! They could get onto the system. Made an appointment & a few days later an appointment letter came followed by a cancellation in the next post saying another appointment would be made.
Last week, having heard nothing I phoned the hospital.
They explained the appointment had been made with the wrong clinic but couldn't log on to make another.
Rung back today & told there were no appointments available as yet.
As another hospital had been included in the original list I went back online to see if I could rebook with that. Amazing! I could get online!
System then told me that a completely different clinic had been notified & they should have been in contact by several days ago. Name and address of clinic given but only the choose & book general phone number.
Went back to the GPs secretary. She finds that the clinic is on answerphone...
NHS should really concentrate on getting its essential IT services running properly instead of playing with trendy Big Data.
After all the fuss they've walked into by now you'd have expected them to have learned some lessons. But no.
Experience is a dear teacher but there are those who will learn by no other. It's time to start making things dear for CEOs & the like. For their own good, of course. It will help them learn.
At the local filling station the other day:
One slot was occupied by a big, unattended SUV - I think it may have said Jeep on the back but not being interested in mobile bricks I didn't take too much notice. The slot continued to be occupied by it; nobody came out of the shop to drive it away. When I went in to pay I asked the attendant what was happening. It turned out that the driver had put in the wrong fuel and consequently (maybe because the engine wouldn't run) the handbrake couldn't be released.
"Then we started acquiring "related companies" and things spiraled out of control. They merged our systems and ended up with us hosting them and fielding all service calls. The problem was that our systems and programs were many and varied and dealing with support was a struggle."
It looks as if the costs of integration should have been considered before the acquisition and allowed for in the price paid.
"we're still trying to get a number, it's non-trivial"
I'd have thought more or less impossible. How do you put together a set of control events with which to compare? That's a problem which is plaguing surgeon league tables.
What's really concerning is the fact that they seem to have had problems in getting adequate accounts, a problem clearly exacerbated by liability questions: it's going to impede improvement. Where life is clearly at risk - something which would apply to medical devices more generally - there needs to be a mandatory report/analyse/modify feedback loop.
In my day that used to be referred to a taking the piss and, because of that, suspected of being an open invitation to the IR/HMRC to carry out an IR35 investigation.
Having been through the full cycle (assisted to some extent by having a pension from early retirement elsewhere) my experience was that company income paid:
- Regular reasonable salary incl. NI. and pension contributions.
- Smaller salary etc to Comp Sec (Comp Sec no longer required for small companies but back then had legal liabilities and taking on those deserves payment).
- Computer hardware & software.
- Travelling and accommodation for gigs away from home.
- Training which includes not only the cost of the course but travelling, accommodation and loss of fees during the course.
- All other expenses including phones, ISP, accountant, insurance and PCG membership.
- Dividends at less frequent intervals than salary.
- Continuance of salary etc. during time off sick (taken to hospital from site experiencing irregular heartbeat, off work for a fortnight).
- Continuance of salary etc. whilst "available" (clue: typical agency call is "Are you available on Monday?". Availability costs money.)
- Continuance of salary etc. for some time after the last contract.
- Eventual lump sum, I can't remember if that was within CGT limit.
"I run a small company"
You don't say in what capacity. As an owner or as an employed manager? Is it a limited company?
If your company is limited and you own shares then you should be able to take dividends from it.
Those sole contractors should also be making provision for sick leave, time on the bench etc. Ideally they should be making a larger provision than you as their income may be more volatile than yours. They should also be making provision for training in new skills. If they don't make such provisions they're idiots - of which, admittedly, there is no shortage.
Depending on your turnover you might have had a disadvantage to sole contractors of being on the main rate of corporation tax or else an advantage against larger businesses if you were on the small business rate. However, those rates have converged over the last few years.
I suspect your main disadvantage is actually overheads. You don't say how many non-fee-earning staff are involved but there seems to be at least one: yourself. Sole contractors are 100% fee-earners (when working) and larger consultancies may be able to take advantage of scale and spread the cost of each non-fee-earner over more fee-earners. The big consultancies are probably also able to get away with larger fees. You're caught in the middle.
"Regarding the Professional Contractors Group, now called the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, many contractors believe this organisation no longer serves their interests."
That's sad to hear. I was a member in the early days until I retired & served a term on the CC. The name change suggests it's widened its remit so it might have gained a larger membership at the expense of focussing on contracting issues.
They may not know less than you. They may know that "contracting" isn't the same as "contacting". They may know how to spell "paid" and "wad". Such knowledge helps with putting together CVs that don't get filed in the round container.
They may also know that out of their contract rates they have to pay not only income tax and employees' NI but also employers' NI and make provision for being "available" in due course. If they don't know that they'll find out the hard way.
"Try being a public sector IT worker!"
Been there. At least sort of except I was in science and at that time science grades were definitely the bottom of the pile. I think IT would have come under PTE which rates were jacked up because of recruitment shortages. We had wage freezes back then, they're not new. I eventually jumped into IT and the private sector and later into freelance.
"Are deer a reasonable proxy for (libertarian) sheep?"
I don't know. Do they balance on the tops of wall & then suddenly jump down in front of you?
This was one of my first encounters after passing my driving test. Fortunately the suddenness was relative; I realised it was preparing to jump & acted accordingly, but would an autonomous car?
