Third we have to ensure the small companies owned by freelancers pay – and right now we don’t do that either.
Once again he\’s denouncing as tax abuse the method that he himself used for near a decade.
Man\’s shameless.
If it is indeed abuse then The Accountant at 2 Horse Guard\’s SW1 would be very grateful to receive Ritchie\’s cheque for the tax he dodged.
If there\’s none payable then it\’s not tax dodging, is it?
Why is it shameless? People are allowed to change their minds. And the issue is that it’s within the public services.
Are you thick?
You would prefer these public services to instead issue employee contracts Arnald, pay employer NI, pensions, holiday pay, redundancy, and all the other benefits that employees get, benefits and costs not payable for service company contracts?
Say with the BBC would you be willing to have say a 30% increase in your TV licence cost in order to cover these increased costs?
Personally, I don’t like the crusading ‘everybody is guilty’ attitude of a self-appointed ‘guilty in his day’ convert who has demonstrated on countless occasions his lack of understanding of basic issues and an inferiority/superiority complex the size of the London Eye.
His rudeness, effrontery and self agrandizing (attributing yourself intellectual and crusading successes when somebody beat you by years, trumpeting one man bands as important organisations etc.etc.) and, most important of all, the inability to engage in any intellectual discussion with people who do not agree with him are outstanding and are fast becoming legendary.
He operates in the ‘my objectives are good and I care comfort zone’ where it doesn’t matter what you do or say because you are on the right (I mean left) side.
He contradicts himself, he makes basic errors which he has no problem excusing himself for and lately has taken to the excuse of ‘legitimate spin’ when he trips up.
Shame he doesn’t speak Spanish (or does he?) then we could have him here too.
Good grief
That feels better. Now back to work
Martin Davies,
Say with the BBC would you be willing to have say a 30% increase in your TV licence cost in order to cover these increased costs?
If that’s what PSCs are doing then we’re paying them anyway, just via the tax system rather than the license fee.
I’d much rather that it was all stuck on the license fee and made more transparent (as it might raise the level of disgruntlement about the TV Tax).
“And the issue is that it’s within the public services.”
Not actually within, Arnald.
Employee contracts are at the interface where the public service meets the outside world. As far as the potential employee is concerned the BBC is just another employer & what they’re interested in is what the bottom line on their pay packet reads. If the Beeb wants to change the terms of service to come in line with lofty ideals about fair tax it’ll still have arrange those terms of service so that bottom line reads as the same number or it won’t be competitive in the labour market for staff. Moreover, as the BBC is financed by what is effectively a tax, the net gain as far as the taxpayer is concerned, is a big fat zero
Bilbo
So what? I think Worstall is a cock and he’s very often wrong factually, and the rest is vulgarity.
As for one man bands, you obviously have no idea. His is a personal blog as Tax Research UK, and it gets commissions to do forensic investigations. That may be repulsive for you, but it’s the same as anyone who does that type of thing. As for the internation orgs, they are anything but one man bands. That’s you just being prejudiced and ignorant.
And seriously, you should have seen some of the personal flak he got in the early days, the stuff on here is childish compared to how it used to be. the reason he can’t be bothered to respond, and why he blocks, the repetive posters is that he’s answered the same questions time and time again. that’s his prerogative.
As for wrong. It’s a blog. Get over it. The published papers are far tighter, and the wider research done uses sound methodology, compared to the whitewashes by his diametric oppononents.
As for rude. Well Worstall is worse by a hundred. A lot of this blog is vile.
So well done for feeling better, but yah boo to your opinion.
It’s not just the BBC though, is it bis?
It’s not beyond the wit of an employer to set up a contract for the work being done in the public sphere, and for the freelancer to do what he wants elsewhere.
“It’s not beyond the wit of an employer to set up a contract for the work being done in the public sphere, and for the freelancer to do what he wants elsewhere.”
Very true Arnald.
And it’s at the discretion of the employee whether they choose to work there. Slavery having been abolished some little while ago.
My understanding is that a PSC, like self-employment, is, or ought to be, closely policed by the revenue. Where a worker works for one employer, BBC or whoever, cannot choose his hours, uses the employer’s tools and equipment, and does nothing outside the ‘job’ that earns income he/she is employed, not self-employed.
If, OTOH, there is a contract for certain hours only and usually for a fixed term and their rest of the time the worker is free to earn money elsewhere, AND does so using their own tools or talent, then a PSC or self employment is justified and real.
Sure Arnald he can change his mind and admit that he cheated the tax authorities for 10 years. But he should then make amends by paying what he should have paid. Anything else is hypocrisy.
Tim, employees have certain rights, certain benefits. PSCs won’t have those at all.
A PSC will be liable for taxation like other companies, and the individual will pay taxes on income they take from the company. The big saving for the individual is in national insurance, if they choose to do that. Someone taking a wage of £100k a year out of a PSC won’t be much different in tax from if they were employed directly. Would cost BBC more if they were employees however – and much harder to get rid of employees than to end a contract with a company.
Oh, and we don’t know that ANY of the PSCs are avoiding tax.
Is their tax evasion any greater than for the general population?
Could be a few, doubtful it would be all of them. And while can avoid NI using one if willing to take lower salary or delayed income, there are disadvantages to doing that.
The WGCE is just acting as a mouthpiece for his paymasters in the taxmans union again.
HMC&R have long wanted the entire population to be on PAYE for the sake of their administrative convenience.
Given PSC freelancers have the benefit of
No holiday pay
No sick pay
No paid for Training
and as a company director no entitlement to partake of the social welfare system in between engagements.
The alleged ‘social protection’ provided by the NI surtax in all it’s forms is thinly disguised theft.
Notwithstanding that for some sectors such as IT. It is impossible to be hired as a ‘self employed’ freelancer without using a PSC to make it a B2B transaction for the hirer. This is entirely due to the Revenue shaking down hiring companies with menaces if they do.
Abolish NI, roll all of it into the employee deduction (the tax incidence of 13.8% employer NI falls wholly on the employee) and then someone has a case for equal treatment of taxable direct income , but not before.
The treasury will never do this, as the great unwashed will finally comprehend that the UK is *NOT* a low tax country and hasn’t been so for ages due to 20 years of fiscal drag and near doubling of the surtax that dares not speak it’s name.
The actual rates of marginal income taxation for UK PAYE workers is
45.8% at the lower band
55.8% at the mid band
76.3% on income between £100,000 to £116,210 due to claw back of the tax free allowance.
65.8% on income at the upper band.
I used a PSC a little while and managed to pay MORE tax – by foolishly allowing income which would have been covered by my personal allowance to be liable to corporation tax. I doubt I was unique in this.
Freddy is absolutely right. There is nothing wrong with admitting what one did in the past was wrong, apologising and then making reparations.
That RM hasn’t (as far as we know) written a cheque to HMRC for taxes avoided lays him open to the accusation of hypocrisy. And seeing as he always adds such an ethical dimension to tax affairs it is an extremely poor show he hasn’t made reparations.
I wonder what a courageous state should do with him.
“Why is it shameless? People are allowed to change their minds. ”
Yes, they are, but if they believe that what they do/did is *morally evil* then they also have to make amends. And that emphatically is *not* covered by ‘the work he does now’ (viz trying to get other people’s money, and getting paid for doing it.) If he really thinks that, then he owes HM Treasury a nice large chunk of cash before he gets to lecture anyone else. Thats how basic morality works. For anyone who isn’t a canting hypocrite, anyway.
And that’s the reply to your other point, inter alia. You may not agree with what Tim says, but he doesn’t preach one thing and practice another.
“And seriously, you should have seen some of the personal flak he got in the early days, the stuff on here is childish compared to how it used to be. the reason he can’t be bothered to respond, and why he blocks, the repetive posters is that he’s answered the same questions time and time again. that’s his prerogative.”
You are Richard Murphy AICMFP.
“I wonder what a courageous state should do with him”
I’d like to see the early proof of that book, the one where the publisher crossed out ‘mmunist’ and hastily scrawled ‘urageous’
FFS Arnald… If this blog os so vile just piss off and spread your bile somewhere else…
Your main objection seems to be that Tim discusses facts and economic theory to postulate that the leftist agenda is:
1) Ignorant
2) Grounded in wishful thinking
3) Immune to change following feedback from real world outcomes
Challenge the blog on those points as oppsoedto just being a cunt wiuth Tourettes..
Shit! Is it contagious?
Context, sam, Shinsei. Public services. ASI used to be a charity etc etc What’s the point in any of that?
Johnny
Having a bad day, huh? No swearing here, you are démodé old bean. And I was far more creative with my spleen-ventage.
sam
You are old hat AICMFP
eh?
One calls them as one sees them
http://www.fcablog.org.uk/2012/10/in-which-ritchie-demonstrates-the-depth-of-his-ignorance-about-business/
And yes, I know it is from a blog.
Sounds very much like (and reading from the Original Post on TRUK I get this impression) he’s looking to turn the clock back pre- 1979, before the concept of Freelancing was in regular use. Not much to add to the excellent post by Martin Davies. (#2) By all means end contracting out or use of PSCs across the Public Sector. I’m sure Serwotka, Mccluskey and suchlike (Who are responsible for much of Murphy’s income) will be delighted. I’d also imagine Murphy would be in favour of a return to the Closed shop as well as repeals on the laws instigated by Tebbit/Thatcher on secondary picketing/ Secret ballots. As Tim says, the man is shameless.
The one thing which would reduce the incidence of the abuses he bangs on about would be a general simplification of the tax system and an overall lowering of the tax rate. However, obviously , this runs diametrically opposed to his remit which is to ensure as much tax is levied on the general populace to fund Public expenditure as is humanly possible. Kudos also to Joe Blow (#13) for one of the best posts I have seen anywhere. This is naked special pleading for vested interests in the Trade Union movement and what’s even worse is it’s cloaked in the language of ‘fairness’ and ‘protecting the honest worker’. Indeed if I shut my eyes, I could almost imagine I was listening to a Jack Jones speech circa 1975.
Arnald
Having seen some of Murphy’s earlier blogs I do appreciate the sheer volume of hostile comment was becoming an issue in terms of management. Posts from around 2009 in particular seemed to be the equivalent of a Groundhog Day with what he terms ‘Astroturfing Right Wing trolls’. The problem is he has expanded that term to include basically anyone who disagrees with the writ of Richard Murphy. It’s not an especially helpful or constructive attitude, although oddly I do empathise with him as his courtesy when dealing with earlier hostile comments obviously gave way to extreme frustration which seems to have stayed with him since.