We're All In This Together .....

[teamsaint]

Having always been self employed , what I have noticed is for those of us who are sole traders (which includes the vast majority of musicians ) things have got much tighter so that if one has temporary cash flow problems (try being ill for a couple of weeks with no sick pay etc ) there is no way to negotiate spreading things like tax and Ni while one recovers. When I started my first three years tax bills were based on my first years profit, this effectively meant that I had very low tax while I got my business established (and then gradually paid it all over the course of several years). If I was starting out today , it would be significantly harder to develop a significant body of work to become viable as a business. Surely we should be encouraging people to be self reliant and develop careers that make the most of their talents and skills ???

MrGG I was SE for 20 years. In all that time, on ONE occasion, I asked if i could delay payment of £300 for a month. I was content to pay the interest, and told them so. No kidding, i got the third degree. Questions like, what credit cards do you have, what car do you drive. utter nonsense. I certainly wasn't going to sell my car (work vehicle) to pay a bill, since without my car ( a diesel C3 as it happens) i had no business.
I was , I have to say, really pretty upset about this. Once. in 20 years. Every other payment on the button.
The government do close to zero to help the SE, and take far too much from them, including 2 classes of NI.
Very pro business, these governments of ours !!Pro big business that is.

[MrGongGong]

indeed

I had more or less the same experience
trying to explain that if I paid off all my tax using a credit card I would be unable to put petrol in the car or buy a train ticket to get to work so would go bust seemed to have no effect at all........aaaaaargh

at the moment i'm recovering from rather big surgery a couple of weeks ago, I have music to write so don't need to travel too much in the next few weeks but the consequences of not getting better would be financial disaster for us
thankfully I'm feeling much better and able to start doing stuff again and isn't it great that all the NI I have religiously paid on time has given me sick pay :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: not a chance matey

[Lateralthinking1]

Mr GG - Wishing you a very speedy recovery. - Lat.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er i have been variously employed by myself as self employed and company owner for thirty seven years; the rules they are a chaangin etc ...

the main thing is the scandal of recasualising work, the working poor, the multi part time jobs and the avoidance of employment legislation by any means possible .... any one remmeber the docks labour board and why it was created or the Merchant Navy Establishment ... casualised labour was how the Victorians massacred the workers ...

as i said enough to make one a Fabian ...

[ahinton]

Having always been self employed , what I have noticed is for those of us who are sole traders (which includes the vast majority of musicians ) things have got much tighter so that if one has temporary cash flow problems (try being ill for a couple of weeks with no sick pay etc ) there is no way to negotiate spreading things like tax and Ni while one recovers. When I started my first three years tax bills were based on my first years profit, this effectively meant that I had very low tax while I got my business established (and then gradually paid it all over the course of several years). If I was starting out today , it would be significantly harder to develop a significant body of work to become viable as a business. Surely we should be encouraging people to be self reliant and develop careers that make the most of their talents and skills ???

Of course we should!

[ahinton]

so how do you suggest we stop taxpayers being ripped off by these somewhat underhand payment methods?

I don't - and, as I mentioned, it's a swings and roundabouts case whenever public services employers get out of paying NIC1 because that means that they don't pass on those charges to the taxpayer who funds them - but then isn't the other case that I mentioned where employers contract people over state retirement age who in turn subcontract the work involved to someone else more of a potential underhanded rip-off?

[ahinton]

MrGG I was SE for 20 years. In all that time, on ONE occasion, I asked if i could delay payment of £300 for a month. I was content to pay the interest, and told them so. No kidding, i got the third degree. Questions like, what credit cards do you have, what car do you drive. utter nonsense. I certainly wasn't going to sell my car (work vehicle) to pay a bill, since without my car ( a diesel C3 as it happens) i had no business.
I was , I have to say, really pretty upset about this. Once. in 20 years. Every other payment on the button.
The government do close to zero to help the SE, and take far too much from them, including 2 classes of NI.
Very pro business, these governments of ours !!Pro big business that is.

I agree and sympathise, being one of those SEs myself (and having been once since the age of 13).

[teamsaint]

indeed

I had more or less the same experience
trying to explain that if I paid off all my tax using a credit card I would be unable to put petrol in the car or buy a train ticket to get to work so would go bust seemed to have no effect at all........aaaaaargh

at the moment i'm recovering from rather big surgery a couple of weeks ago, I have music to write so don't need to travel too much in the next few weeks but the consequences of not getting better would be financial disaster for us
thankfully I'm feeling much better and able to start doing stuff again and isn't it great that all the NI I have religiously paid on time has given me sick pay :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: not a chance matey

since its "Hard luck story" hour here, I had to wait 6 months for my double hernia op. Couldn't work any more, (not least because its very dangerous, ) didn't get sick pay of course, so had to go private in order to stay solvent.Pretty glad that i didn't know at the time that my NI and tax was being siphoned by greedy and over paid bureaucrats on a tax dodging mission.

[ahinton]

Mr GG - Wishing you a very speedy recovery. - Lat.

Me too.

[jayne lee wilson]

Don't forget - sorry if it's over-obvious - if self-employed and you fill in an SA Tax Return each year you can reduce the payments on account, say if you have a bad year following a good one. That's pretty straightforward if you have a reasonable estimate of what your income for the current year will be.

MrGG I was SE for 20 years. In all that time, on ONE occasion, I asked if i could delay payment of £300 for a month. I was content to pay the interest, and told them so. No kidding, i got the third degree. Questions like, what credit cards do you have, what car do you drive. utter nonsense. I certainly wasn't going to sell my car (work vehicle) to pay a bill, since without my car ( a diesel C3 as it happens) i had no business.
I was , I have to say, really pretty upset about this. Once. in 20 years. Every other payment on the button.
The government do close to zero to help the SE, and take far too much from them, including 2 classes of NI.
Very pro business, these governments of ours !!Pro big business that is.

[Lateralthinking1]

I don't - and, as I mentioned, it's a swings and roundabouts case whenever public services employers get out of paying NIC1 because that means that they don't pass on those charges to the taxpayer who funds them

I don't accept this argument at all. While factually it can't be questioned, the nuances are extremely questionable. The vast majority of public sector employers who do pay NIC1 contributions are subsidising those who don't through their contributions for if everyone paid they would arguably be at a lower rate. And those who are not paying NIC1 are themselves taxpayers - big money taxpayers to boot - so they are the taxpayers who are principally benefiting from this, to date, Government authorised dodge.

This must be given a Telegraph MPs' expenses treatment, no stone left unturned, as the police would do with a major robbery.

[teamsaint]

indeed

I had more or less the same experience
trying to explain that if I paid off all my tax using a credit card I would be unable to put petrol in the car or buy a train ticket to get to work so would go bust seemed to have no effect at all........aaaaaargh

at the moment i'm recovering from rather big surgery a couple of weeks ago, I have music to write so don't need to travel too much in the next few weeks but the consequences of not getting better would be financial disaster for us
thankfully I'm feeling much better and able to start doing stuff again and isn't it great that all the NI I have religiously paid on time has given me sick pay :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: not a chance matey

yep, hope your recovery is speedy, and you are inspired to write some great stuff. don't laugh too much at the composer lookalike thread..............

[MrGongGong]

thanks folks , feeling better already (who really "needs" two kidneys anyway ?)
:biggrin:

[teamsaint]

Don't forget - sorry if it's over-obvious - if self-employed and you fill in an SA Tax Return each year you can reduce the payments on account, say if you have a bad year following a good one. That's pretty straightforward if you have a reasonable estimate of what your income for the current year will be.

Thanks for the advice. I am not SE at the moment, but no doubt someone else can benefit.
my 3 years in the civil service were at what was then the Inland revenue.........and we were absolute pussycats. used to bend over backwards to help people.(actually not sure if pussycats can bend over backwards)!! Times have changed.........

[cloughie]

Thanks for the advice. I am not SE at the moment, but no doubt someone else can benefit.
my 3 years in the civil service were at what was then the Inland revenue.........and we were absolute pussycats. used to bend over backwards to help people.(actually not sure if pussycats can bend over backwards)!! Times have changed.........

They're pretty flexible.