Limited and umbrella company contractors excluded from False Self-Employment rules
Limited and umbrella company contractors will be excluded from the proposed False Self-Employment legislation, according to recruitment and contractor legal specialist Lawspeed. In a recent seminar, Lawspeed highlighted that a tax technicality means the low salary and dividends that limited company contractors pay themselves fails one of the key conditions of the new rules. However, recruiters and genuine sole traders in the construction sector may suffer as a result of HMRC’s far-reaching proposals. More...
Financial IT contractor demand to benefit from gradual City recovery
Financial IT contractor demand looks set to increase in the early months of 2014 as London’s financial centre gradually recovers. Despite the traditional December slump, the Morgan McKinley London Employment Monitor for December 2014 predicts that employment will increase sharply, with a knock-on positive impact on financial IT contractor demand. Morgan McKinley Financial Services operations director Hakan Enver highlights: “Year-on-year the statistics for both hiring and active job seekers are still very encouraging, with levels up 51% and 45% respectively.Moreover, historically we see a massive boost in City recruitment come January, and 2014 looks to be no different.” More...
Contractor demand growth increases for yet another month in Scotland
Contractor demand in Scotland grew across the board during December 2013, with all core contracting disciplines showing strong growth. Agency billings were at a three-year high, and the financial sector performed particularly strongly, with Scotland’s financial centre Edinburgh posting the highest rate of contractor appointments and rate rises. Bank of Scotland chief economist Donald MacRae says: “The numberof people appointed to both permanent and temporary jobs rose sharply while the number of vacancies increased strongly, reflecting strong demand from employers.” More...
Finance leads contractor demand in coming quarter, as skills shortages loom
Financial contractors are forecast to be in greatest demand over the next three months, closely followed by engineering and IT contractors. This is according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s JobsOutlook, which also highlights a shortage of contractors in the technical engineering and professional sectors. “The shortage of candidates with the skills required for a growing number of vacancies is a looming problem,” notes REC head of policy Kate Shoesmith. More...
Finance and financial IT contractor prospects improve as the recovery reaches financial services
Finance and financial IT contractor prospects are looking positive as the economic recovery starts to feed through to the UK’s financial sector. The latest Confederation of British Industry (CBI)/PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Financial Services Survey shows optimism in the sector rising at its fastest rate since the survey began in 1989. According to the survey “employment grew at its fastest pace since 2007 and expected employment growth for the first quarter of 2014 is the strongest since the survey began”. More...
73% of contractor clients believe the UK tax system is unfit for the 21st century
73% of contractor clients believe that the UK’s present tax system is unfit for the 21st century, and 72% consider any attempts at reform are doomed to failure. This is according to PricewaterhouseCooper’s (PwC) 17th Annual Global CEO Survey, which also shows that confidence in a global economic recovery is high. PCG’s CEO Chris Bryce highlights that if big business is having problems with UK tax, imagine what it must be like for small businesses such as contractors. “We wholeheartedly agree with big businesses when they say that the system is not fit for purpose,” says Bryce. “Independent professionals face a taxation system mired in red tape and, what’s more, they do so without the huge resources bigger businesses can devote to coping with it.” More...
Fix IR35 by making it irrelevant, ContractorCalculator CEO tells peers
“The only way to fix IR35 is to make it irrelevant, by combining National Insurance Contributions (NICs) with Pay As You Earn (PAYE) income tax.” This was ContractorCalculator CEO Dave Chaplin’s message to the House of Lords Select Committee on Personal Service Companies (PSCs) inquiry. In his evidence to the inquiry, Chaplin highlighted that he’d been monitoring the legislation since it was first introduced in 1999, adding: “We can safely conclude that it has failed in its original objectives and remains a massive burden on the smallest of the UK’s businesses.
Self-employed contractors number leap by 92,000 in the quarter to November 2013
Self-employed contractor numbers increased to 4.456m in the quarter to November 2013, representing an increase of 147,000 over the period, which included 92,000 full-time workers, the balance being part-timers. The labour market as whole performed strongly during the quarter, with total employment increasing and unemployment falling. Despite supposed public sector austerity measures, public sector employment remained at 5.67m during September to November 2013, only 52,000 lower than in the same period of 2012. More...
Limited company contractors attracted to contracting lifestyle, shows survey
Limited company contractors are attracted to the contracting lifestyle and 92% intend to remain contracting over the long-term. These are the key results of a survey by contractor accountant ClearSky Accounting, which says it has recently secured its 10,000th client. Contractors are also optimistic about future prospects, as accounting director Daniel Mepham explains: “I believe that the next 12 months will deliver an increase in demand across the core contracting disciplines, particularly in the oil and gas and finance sectors.” More...
IT contractor demand surge in the North East may come from an unlikely quarter
A surge in IT contractor demand in the North East of England may be coming from an unlikely source: HMRC. The taxman is creating a new centre for digital services, which will be initially hiring 50 digital specialists across a range of IT disciplines. “This is the start of our ambitious programme to transform HMRC’s online and digital services,” explains Mark Dearnley, HMRC’s chief digital and information officer. “The Digital Centres will foster a culture of innovation not seen across government before, so that we can continually find new ways of supporting customers.” More...