4 ms·

This is exactly my issue! I started contracting on £x per day, a year ago they put me In-Scope of IR35 and my day rate went down by 13% due to a cost natural a

This is exactly my issue! I started contracting on £x per day, a year ago they put me In-Scope of IR35 and my day rate went down by 13% due to a cost natural approach by the client. I then have to pay tax on that. Before I didn't pay myself the whole amount as I wanted to save money in the company for a rainy day! I am now thinking about moving to the UAE

varispeed 6y ago
This is indeed another consequence - you cannot raise capital for your company with your own work anymore. For example if you have a little start up idea you could have done some contracting and then have funds to develop it. Now you can either lend money to your company or look for an investor - it means you'll have to share your business with someone or be at mercy of banks. I can imagine this cut so many wings...
- Nursie 6y ago
  This does seem to preclude developing a company from being a one-person thing to a bootstrapped entity in its own right. I know someone who did that around 05, it was very effective. Eventually he grew it to around 10 people, all of whom could be farmed out for contracts when the company itself wasn't quite cutting it. Perhaps a model of contractors collecting together in small groups to carry on, will work.
  - petercooper 6y ago
    Perhaps a model of contractors collecting together in small groups to carry on, will work. I've seen this happen a bit in the US, especially in the Rails consulting space. I think having loosely formed "agencies" made up of complementary partners where the sales pipeline goes through the agency is definitely a potential way forward, but seems uncommon in the UK so far. The downside is independent contractors with poor networking skills might struggle to find people to collaborate with.
    - obayesshelton 6y ago
      I love this idea! Do you have some names of agencies that do this?
      - Nursie 6y ago
        Some friends and I got like 5% into building a website for this a year or so back - an analogue to a CV site where you could upload your team profile, competencies etc. As with many ideas like this, we kinda lost interest and moved on to other things. It's possible there's a gap in the market.
      - petercooper 6y ago
        I don't want to point to ones I remember from back in the day in case I got their model wrong, but a current company doing something like this at scale would be https://x-team.com/ https://x-team.com/ .. I think it could work at a much smaller level though.
        obayesshelton 6y ago
        Thanks :)

varispeed 6y ago

This is indeed another consequence - you cannot raise capital for your company with your own work anymore. For example if you have a little start up idea you could have done some contracting and then have funds to develop it. Now you can either lend money to your company or look for an investor - it means you'll have to share your business with someone or be at mercy of banks. I can imagine this cut so many wings...

Nursie 6y ago
This does seem to preclude developing a company from being a one-person thing to a bootstrapped entity in its own right. I know someone who did that around 05, it was very effective. Eventually he grew it to around 10 people, all of whom could be farmed out for contracts when the company itself wasn't quite cutting it. Perhaps a model of contractors collecting together in small groups to carry on, will work.
- petercooper 6y ago
  Perhaps a model of contractors collecting together in small groups to carry on, will work. I've seen this happen a bit in the US, especially in the Rails consulting space. I think having loosely formed "agencies" made up of complementary partners where the sales pipeline goes through the agency is definitely a potential way forward, but seems uncommon in the UK so far. The downside is independent contractors with poor networking skills might struggle to find people to collaborate with.
  - obayesshelton 6y ago
    I love this idea! Do you have some names of agencies that do this?
    - Nursie 6y ago
      Some friends and I got like 5% into building a website for this a year or so back - an analogue to a CV site where you could upload your team profile, competencies etc. As with many ideas like this, we kinda lost interest and moved on to other things. It's possible there's a gap in the market.
    - petercooper 6y ago
      I don't want to point to ones I remember from back in the day in case I got their model wrong, but a current company doing something like this at scale would be https://x-team.com/ https://x-team.com/ .. I think it could work at a much smaller level though.
      - obayesshelton 6y ago
        Thanks :)