[Closed] IT Contracting post April 2020. What have you decided?

Went permie 6 years ago when the writing was pencilled in on the wall.

Can’t see the good old days coming back soon. Best deal is probably short term direct contracts - with holiday/sick etc so less take home or as you say big consulting providers (agents) working as employers.

You got out 7 years early???

Seems a little premature considering the contractor mindset?

I've been permenant in all 3 sectors, entrepreneur and contractor and never been with any one employer for more than 2 years.

I am a millennial tho

Carry on, take the hit. It’s always going to come to an end and it’s massively expensive for organisations too.

I foresee FTC rates stying the same, but same tax rates as everyone else... and that’s actually a good thing.

IMO

My current gig comes to an end in March, so I'll just spend a few months seeing what happens with everyone else.

My mindset is my rate is going up by ~30% come ir35 for private sector.

That or invoke substitution often and run multiple concurrent contracts to demonstrate outside of ir35.

But again as a contractor, no single role over 23 months.

Grow a pair and up yer rate.

Don't go work for IBM or EDS or one of the other **** companies who sponsored the legislation.

I’ve just got in from a seminar on IR35.

If your assignment / contract is outside, nothing changes. It’s up to your agency & client to agree that it’s outside IR35, but then anything you can do to reinforce the fact that it’s outside, the better.

If it’s inside you will be worse off than before, but if you’re of any real worth to the client, your agency should be able to negotiate a deal with the client whereby they up the day rate to compensate for the extra tax & NIC. You don’t need to go through an umbrella company and if any umbrella tells you they can get you taking home 85% of your day rate inside IR35, run away & nuke them from orbit. Yes it will be less lucrative than an assignment outside IR35, but you’ll still take home a lot more than a permanent employee.

So for me, outside IR35 now, nothing changes unless I move to another client who deems the new assignment to be inside

In the last 18 months I’ve done gigs inside and outside IR35. Inside have been higher day rates, but not as high to completely equate the take home. Still decent money by any stretch of the imagination though and if you are loading a pension, the gap is even narrower.

^^ that.

We've been negotiating rates with agencies and starting to segment roles in/out of IR35 for some time.

Nothing inherently wrong with paying a bit more tax is there..

There'll be a bit of a hiatus while everyone works out how to handle the legisltaion, but the need for temporary/flexible/niche skills will always be around. Some roles will go inside ir35 (as they should always have been), others will be outside ir 35.

The big question is, if you are someone who has been contracting somewhere and you have been declaring yourself outside ir35, but when the legislation comes in the client decides its inside ir35 - what are you going to do? Leave? try and argue to get it classified as outside ir35? stay and accept the inside ir35 decision and a risk that you then have to pay additional tax on the previous x months/years you havent planned for?

people have been predicting the death of contracting for as long as I have been working (23 years), I dont think its going to come true this time either.

What would make the client decide that an assignment currently outside IR35 has suddenly become inside? Have you changed your working practices? Do you suddenly look/smell/feel like an employee?

The big question is, if you are someone who has been contracting somewhere and you have been declaring yourself outside ir35, but when the legislation comes in the client decides its inside ir35 – what are you going to do?

If this happens, behaviours need to change. Line mgt responsibilities, location of work and the hours you keep, how you work, what kit you use...etc
How you conduct yourself should change inside. If you’re not doing the right things when outside, then you need to take stock.

What would make the client decide that an assignment currently outside IR35 has suddenly become inside? Have you changed your working practices? Do you suddenly look/smell/feel like an employee?

Client could just decide its inside ir35 because they dont want the perceived risk of an outside ir35 decision being tested by HMRC, even though the working practices/contract etc all point to it being outside ir35. What should the contractor do? They've correctly judged it to be outside ir35, but now the client says its inside ir 35 . The contractor should definitely try and educate the client that really its outside ir35, but if the client doesnt care/isnt interested in changeing their determination? then the contractor may have to go through a costly/lengthy/worrying investigation with hmrc , and hopefully they would come out of the other side with a win, but who knows.

I'm a perm but job hunting and will be contracting even if it is inside ir35. Perm rates stop so far short of contract rates even taking into account ir35 in all but a few cases. Engineering / IT / development industry in the UK has very very few senior level perm jobs you top out very easily salary wise so ther ei Sno option but to contact unless you are like me and get a bit stuck in a job for peraonal reasons.

The whole thing is very HMRC in that there is no definition of anything. It's so badly termed you could make nearly anything fall inside IR35 if you want.

My current contract requires me to bill through Experis and they are absolutely useless. Never had to deal with such a rubbish agency in all my years!

I do agree that line management and company behavior needs to change as some perm team leads have an annoying habit of treating contractors like perms and that must change.

I was wondering whether the plumber or roofer who provides services to a huge building development and works on the same site for the same client for a year is also classed as within IR35. I do feel like IT contractors were an easy target and as we all know software has to be managed so you can't really just start a project and tell the contractors "pick what you want to work on and come back when it's finished" there will always have to be some control and direction from the client.

I was wondering whether the plumber or roofer who provides services to a huge building development and works on the same site for the same client for a year is also classed as within IR35.

Unlikely. A) it would be easy for him/her to find a substitute plumber/roofer if unable to do a particular job on a given date or date range (b) client won’t tell builder/roofer how to do the work and (c) client is unlikely to be providing the equipment. Materials yes, but not the tools. These are the big three tests for being outside IR35. There are other things you can do to reinforce the ‘outside’ determination.

HMRC is wanting everything within IR35 - they want the full tax ad NI. Public sector here and we've been dealing with IR35 for a while now. Keep plenty of clients and have a limited company.