Coronavirus

[Sparky]

17 minutes ago, Bibs said:

I really like this guy - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52027342

Me too!  The right decision.  Exactly what Walsh wants though, as BA is likely to be last man standing in the UK.

[Hello Paul]

13 hours ago, au-yt said:

She is an attentions seeking child with asbergers coached buy her parents to be political ideological puppet of the UN, which driven by the "Club of Rome". and she has no idea of what damage they are causing, what they are proposing will cause more damage than C-19, and already starting to. They will think C-19 is a good thing as one of their goals is to reduce the earth population if you think im joking do some homework. 

Back to C-19 discussion

Nope. Just no. You going to start on faked moon landings next?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I guess this whole desperate situation is as close as we have got in our life times to a World War III.

Thousands dying. Global economy in meltdown. Whole countries in lockdown. Emergency legislation. Hospitals overflowing. Families sheltering in their homes from a deadly faceless enemy.

Obviously it (hopefully) won’t bear comparison with the two proper World Wars, but history will record this as the most significant event of our particular lives.

Just sayin’

[Hello Paul]

3 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Whilst I agree with your sentiments which in principle I could support, let's not forget that whilst normal PAYE employees have no choice but to pay their full whack of Tax and NI contributions, many IR35 contractors (especially in my IT sector), sole traders (who love to deal in cash) and self employed ( not all but a considerable number) have spent years avoiding tax and NI contributions. Hmmm, did they give a shit about the NHS? Did they pay their full whack to cover the banks? Of course not. Many of them were smug bastards who live a great lifestyle well beyond what their "declared" income would suggest.

...

Your IT contractor who has been earning £600 a day, (£135k in billable days) for the same client for 5 years, paying themselves a minimal salary, regular dividends and offsetting "expenses" against earnings for tax etc. Did they give a shit about their PAYE colleagues who were earning half what they earnt and paying twice the tax?

 

I'm a self-employed sole trader. Yes, I could declare things illegally as expenses, and yes, I could just lie about my income. But I don't, because I'm not a c**t. I am regularly contaced by 'umbrella companies' offering convoluted, semi-legal methods to circumvent taxes. I'd rather not.

I make, when the work comes in, a decent living. Sometimes I have no work for weeks, sometimes I'm working 14 hour days to keep up. Unsurprisingly, work has completely evaporated now, but I still need to pay the mortgage, bills and feed myself and the dog. Yes, there are certainly arseholes cheating the system, and they should be punished to the full extent of the law. But please don't rope all sole traders in together. I paid my tax to bail out the millionaire hedge fund traders when their bonuses dropped to just few hundred grand, poor souls. I pay my taxes to fund the NHS (even though I know that DePfeffel, Branson & co. are just syphoning most of the cash into their offshore dirty money accounts). And of course I voted Labour in the last election (and COVERED my house with posters to encourage others to do so too - I live next door to the polling station) in an attempt to even out our ridiculous economy and remove this evil disgusting fascist Cummings from power.

[Colin P]

33 minutes ago, Hello Paul said:

I'm a self-employed sole trader. Yes, I could declare things illegally as expenses, and yes, I could just lie about my income. But I don't, because I'm not a c**t. I am regularly contaced by 'umbrella companies' offering convoluted, semi-legal methods to circumvent taxes. I'd rather not.
 

In which case, your payments will reflect that, so no problem. 

[red vtec]

Are Lotus helping with any of the equipment etc? 

[C8RKH]

41 minutes ago, Hello Paul said:

But please don't rope all sole traders in together.

I didn't, and I agree with you, there are some who play by the rules and some that don't. (I think it is also industry / job dependent too - for instance in the building trade many just don't have the option to be PAYE and even as a "contractor / sole trader / small business owner" their rates of pay/reward have been pared down to the bone and lower. But then other industries like IT, management consulting etc -a lot of piss taking goes on there!)

For instance, it is does not bother me that a contract PM in IT could earn say £140k a year (billing 225 days a year) whilst sat next to a permanent employee earning £50-80k for the same job. Usually, the permie employee works for 52 weeks of the yer, gets paid for bank holidays, holiday leave and sickness, and pension contributions. So in the round, they are probably getting £90-95k value compared to the contractors £140k but they are not guaranteed continuous work, so hence the rate difference.

But what does piss me off, is then the contractor ALSO, in many but not all cases, then tries to limit their tax/NIC liabilities, whilst also playing the system on allowable expenses, to stretch their prorata net pay even higher.  Then, when we hit a down turn, it's all woe is me from those who have been hoovering up the financial benefit for a while.

So yes, a balanced view is needed. Not all are sucking the life out of it. I totally agree. But many are and do take the piss and I work, and have worked, with a lot of them over the last 30 years...  Hell, I've even employed many of them lol...

5 minutes ago, red vtec said:

Are Lotus helping with any of the equipment etc? 

Would you want to rely on a ventilator?      (Lol, only joking, my Evora is spot on reliability wise!)

[Bibs]

52 minutes ago, red vtec said:

Are Lotus helping with any of the equipment etc? 

Geely are, posted earlier in this thread or the Future of Lotus thread a couple of weeks back. 

[pete]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

I didn't, and I agree with you, there are some who play by the rules and some that don't. (I think it is also industry / job dependent too - for instance in the building trade many just don't have the option to be PAYE and even as a "contractor / sole trader / small business owner" their rates of pay/reward have been pared down to the bone and lower. But then other industries like IT, management consulting etc -a lot of piss taking goes on there!)

For instance, it is does not bother me that a contract PM in IT could earn say £140k a year (billing 225 days a year) whilst sat next to a permanent employee earning £50-80k for the same job. Usually, the permie employee works for 52 weeks of the yer, gets paid for bank holidays, holiday leave and sickness, and pension contributions. So in the round, they are probably getting £90-95k value compared to the contractors £140k but they are not guaranteed continuous work, so hence the rate difference.

But what does piss me off, is then the contractor ALSO, in many but not all cases, then tries to limit their tax/NIC liabilities, whilst also playing the system on allowable expenses, to stretch their prorata net pay even higher.  Then, when we hit a down turn, it's all woe is me from those who have been hoovering up the financial benefit for a while.

And when the revenue tries to close the loopholes this happen:-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8113315/ITV-gives-40-million-Golden-Four-save-tax.html

[Neal H]

3 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

I’m in a particularly unusual employment situation. I have been the sole UK based employee of a German company for the past 18 years. I work from home on a usual fixed monthly salary basis. There is no UK registered subsidiary company, so the Germans make a gross monthly GBP payment to a nominated UK Accountancy company, who handles my pay-roll and sends off both the employer and employee NIC deductions and the employee income tax directly to HMRC. The net remainder is paid into my bank account and a corresponding pay-slip provided.

As it stands I am still employed as normal, but my boss has already warned that at least short-time working is expected in our department soon due to the massive global downturn.

The first eligibility criterion of the new 80% payment UK Government furlough scheme is that it must be for a UK business. This must therefore count me out of benefiting from this as a potential future option, otherwise I would have been eligible for £2500 per month.

I fear it might be a similar situation with any upcoming self-employed salary legislation: I.e. you will need to be a registered UK business, which I am not. I do have an individual PAYE scheme, but on behalf of a German registered business only.

Germany itself has an established short-time working procedure, whereby the German Government helps top up most of any shortfall. Eg if your work is reduced to 4 days, the employer pays 80% and the Government chips in with most of the rest and indeed a slightly higher amount for employees with children like me. However I am neither a German tax payer nor citizen, so I won’t be eligible for that either. Like nearly all businesses, my employer is being hit hard by the situation and will continue to suffer for quite some time to come, so there is no spare money floating around for generous hand-outs.

Meanwhile, my wife works part-time: only about 10 hours per week at nigh on minimum wage. She has just been informed that she will be furloughed and unable to work from 01.04.20. Her 80% income will then be about £290 per month for the foreseeable future.

So if I do lose my job and am ineligible for any of these support schemes, that might be the only income we get: £290 per month to house and feed a family of 4.

I’m no expert on this, but I worked for a U.K. company that had one employee based (at home) in Estonia. To achieve this we had to register the UK company as a “non-resident” employer in Estonia and the company (while not registered in Estonia) had Estonian tax codes and accounts. The Estonian employee also had to be employed  using an Estonian employment contract etc. We used an accounting firm in Estonia to handle the local payroll on our behalf and pay over the necessary taxes on our behalf (including all the employer tax costs as well as employee). Estonia, like Germany and the U.K., is EU.

I would think that your German employer is registered in the U.K in a similar manner, so are paying over all due employee and employer taxes to HMRC, which effectively means that they are ‘registered’ in the U.K. I would check with them and the accountants who handle the payroll, but I’d be surprised and disappointed if you weren’t eligible for the compensation scheme.

[C8RKH]

Use the free Companies house webcheck service to see if they are listed in the UK - http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

[Neal H]

They may well not be registered with Companies House, but almost certainly are with HMRC.

[C8RKH]

Good point.  In that case you should / could see their PAYE Employers reference number on your payslip?

[KAS-118]

7 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Next time you're in London have a chat to your self employed black cab driver and you'll quickly learn that times are tough Guv'nor. Sorry cash only, card machine not working. And yeah, great tan as just back from a couple of weeks in Mauritius and we're off to the Seychelles in 5 weeks....

How long ago was that?

Not saying it's never happened but for the last few years TFL has been very stringent with Black Cab drivers. If a Black Cab doesn't have a fixed Credit Card machine that works then the Cab should not be used and if the driver is using an unapproved device he/she risks using their licence. 

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/accepting-card-payments

 

[geartox]

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

2 hours ago, Neal H said:

 I would check with them and the accountants who handle the payroll, but I’d be surprised and disappointed if you weren’t eligible for the compensation scheme.

Thanks for the advice Neil. I have pinged off an e-mail to the payroll Accountancy company to see if they can help. They’re not what you’d call a dynamic company at the best of times though, so it might take a while to get a decision! Fingers crossed.

[tom kilner]

20 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Wife keeps pestering me for sex but I keep playing the social distance card.  Phew....   Now. What's on Netflix tonight....?  🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

The NYC covid19 advice is to have as few partners at possible.

It's just whether that applies to her or you😉

[geartox]

[march]

Well it appears if you have a pony you are immune and can ignore government mandates.

Two girls went past our house on their ponies about 3 feet apart from each other this afternoon, twenty minutes later they came back with one of the girls coughing 🥺.

Perhaps the Spanish police have this approach right

 

 

[scotty435]

Same in Italy 

 

[Barrykearley]

And india

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3225286724148358/permalink/3229790077031356/

[Jacques]

Stupidity and desperation will sometimes make some people do very odd things. But what we see in the two videoclips are not telling the whole story. It could be a young man pro basque, protesting for independance against Spain, just to mention one strange explanation. Or it may not. But this is not a dictatorship, it's about coping with an evil descease. These two guys though, seems to ask for trouble. They'd better save their energy for something important. They'd better kneel and saya prayer or ask for permission to go and help someone in dire need at a hospital or elsewhere. The yound man on the bike, shouldn't make a slight punch. And the other guy seems to be drunk or similar. But as I said, we don't actually know. And let's also hope that hopefully once this virus is down, that states will not misuse the special right that they have now legisslated afterwards. I am not saying they will, but I am saying to be attentive. There will probably be some places where the state wil suggest to keep phone tracking of individuals permanently. And that is a straight down the drain for democracy. Just sayin'.

Kind regards,

Jacques

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

2 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Thanks for the advice Neil. I have pinged off an e-mail to the payroll Accountancy company to see if they can help. They’re not what you’d call a dynamic company at the best of times though, so it might take a while to get a decision! Fingers crossed.

Seems I underestimated the reaction time of the Accountancy company. They have already replied. Although the new online furlough system is not yet in place, they are of the opinion that my HMRC PAYE scheme should be sufficient for my employer to make a submission, even though they don’t have a UK company. Hopefully it won’t come to this, but at least I am a bit more reassured today, so that’s a good thing. Thanks again.

[pete]

11 hours ago, Barrykearley said:

It’s a very tricky situation @C8RKH

The taxation situation in this country is broken. Income tax should be abandoned completely and purchase tax implemented - 

Unfortunately Barry when purchase tax was the norm there was income tax as well and instead of having one rate of purchase tax every thing was different and somethings had zero tax i.e a wardrobe with a back had tax but one without had zero tax so we started making built in wardrobes using the wall as the back. Any good ,simple idea on tax will soon be f####d up and make complicated by government

[Barrykearley]

Backless wardrobes .... love it.

ive got loads done at home on this social isolating caper. Another week of so of doing tedious shite for the wife and I’ll be isolating myself in the garage for a bit me thinks