As a contractor you may well get invited by your end clients to join in their Christmas activities but as a contractor working through your own limited company there may be some tax breaks possible for holding your own.

The Government chose The National Freelancers Day to announce the appointment of David Morris MP as their Self-Employed Ambassador.

A recent survey by PeopleperHour, an online business that helps match freelancers to very short term jobs or tasks, claims to have found that 58% of new freelance positions were being won by women.

Part of the HM Treasury, The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), has launched an Employment Status Review.

Umbrella are proud to now display the APSCo Compliance Plus sign on our website as a recognition of APSCo’s best practice standard in the education and social work sectors. As an affiliate member of APSCo Umbrella are subject to an annual external compliance audit.

A proposal to introduce a special new type of limited company called a “Freelancer Limited Company” has been submitted to the Chancellor of Exchequer by The Association of Independent Professionals and Self-Employed the IPSE (formerly PCG – Professional  Contractors Group)

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Social workers operating through their own limited companies may fall under the HMRC spotlight as they look at sectors they consider to fall foul of IR35.

From November 2014 HMRC are issuing 24 million personal tax summaries showing the tax you have paid and how it was spent. You should receive a tax summary automatically if you have paid any income tax in the prior tax year.

Holiday pay has been in the news following a ruling that overtime (and possibly commissions) should be reflected in an employee’s holiday pay but how does this affect contractors who work through contractor umbrella companies?

Holiday pay is in the news following a landmark tribunal case that ruled that overtime should count towards a workers holiday pay rate. What this means is that if overtime is part of your normal working week then you should receive a similar wage when you are also off on holiday i.e. it should not revert back to your basic wage excluding overtime.

At Umbrella we are delighted to employ through our Umbrella Company a high number of Polish, Romanian or Moldovan contractors working in the UK. To help this process we have undergone a full translation of our Umbrella Company documentation and paperwork to Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) and Romanian (Daco-Romanian or Moldovan).