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Working for yourself advice.
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Wilksey:
I believe he has signed up to freelancer, upwork and another, he has a minimal LinkedIn page, I told him to update it and he said he would once the redundancy has finalised, calling ex workers etc is not an option for him unfortunately.

I was trying to think of forums he could post in but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head, do you have any suggestions for any?

There is that IR35 which I think is going away next April, I told him to speak to some accountants and engage a decent one, there are several around here who are good at things other than accountancy, a husband and wife team for example, she is an accountant and he is a lawyer who is sh!t hot at employment law.


Thanks.
Psi:
Some good tips.

- Work from home for as long as possible, until you're making so much stuff that you run out of room and have no choice but to rent/buy an office.  Too many people assume if they're running a business they need to have an office/store etc. Don't waste money on it until you have no other choice.

- Find a neish,  look for a product that many people want but does not exist in the format people want, or maybe it does exist but is really expensive for no real reason other than its a neish product.    You want something that, if you can make cheaper, lots more people will want to get one.

- Reading forums and asking people what products they always wanted but are too expensive can work sometimes.

- Stay away from mains voltage stuff, if you need power use an off the shelf mains psu and run your stuff on low voltage DC.

- If you don't want to make anything you can look at repair.  There are so many super expensive neish products that fail and which the manufacture will not repair or charges a ridiculously amount for.  Sometimes just finding the right sort of business and asking "What products do you have that keep failing and are insanity expensive to repair" can discover opportunities.   To make money in repair you really need to specialize in a particular type of product so you can get to know it really well. Once you know all the common ways it fails repairing it is easy. but it can be quite hard to track down faults in the beginning.
AndyC_772:

--- Quote from: Wilksey on October 04, 2022, 12:12:43 pm ---There is that IR35 which I think is going away next April

--- End quote ---

!!!

No, it's not. What's going away are the reforms to the public and then private sector, which placed responsibility for determining IR35 status on the client rather than the contractor.

This is good in that it means contractors should no longer have to just accept a blanket 'inside IR35' determination made by HR departments. If we're confident that our contracts are outside IR35, then we can make that assertion rather than simply accept a higher tax bill that may be completely unjustified.

However, it's still vitally important that we draft our contracts with full knowledge of the 'disguised employment' tests in mind. They've not (yet) gone away.

I recommend getting in touch with Qdos Contractor and asking about their insurance and contract review services.

[Edit: my 4000th post and it's about sodding IR35... sob!)
tom66:
The tax arrangements for contractors in the UK has nearly always been stupid.

We should have a common taxation framework that covers independent contractors (who bear the expenses of running their own business) and employees (who do not), rather than the bizarre arrangement of paying yourself up to one limit and then taking dividends in another.  'Expenses' are things like an office, or a new oscilloscope, but they should not be accommodated merely by lower income tax.  The present arrangements (if outside IR35) seem to benefit contractors considerably in income taxation, which feels 'wrong'.  Also, there is no 13.8% NI supplement which an employer normally pays.

I can see the reasoning behind IR35 reform but it attacks the wrong part - we just need to have a better tax system.  Politics!
Wilksey:

--- Quote from: AndyC_772 on October 04, 2022, 02:26:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: Wilksey on October 04, 2022, 12:12:43 pm ---There is that IR35 which I think is going away next April

--- End quote ---

!!!

No, it's not. What's going away are the reforms to the public and then private sector, which placed responsibility for determining IR35 status on the client rather than the contractor.

This is good in that it means contractors should no longer have to just accept a blanket 'inside IR35' determination made by HR departments. If we're confident that our contracts are outside IR35, then we can make that assertion rather than simply accept a higher tax bill that may be completely unjustified.

However, it's still vitally important that we draft our contracts with full knowledge of the 'disguised employment' tests in mind. They've not (yet) gone away.

I recommend getting in touch with Qdos Contractor and asking about their insurance and contract review services.

[Edit: my 4000th post and it's about sodding IR35... sob!)

--- End quote ---
Ah, I knew something was changing, but as it doesn't apply to me I just ignore all of the emails, but I am sure one was titled "IR35 A thing of the past", I know what it is but I just figured the title was self explanatory, perhaps not, something his accountant can advise on in any case.
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