Richard Perch - umbrella.co.uk
Editor | 29 March 2017
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Umbrella.co.uk would like to congratulate Richard Perch on winning our 'Employee of the Month' award.

Self-employed welcome Chancellor’s ‘screeching’ U-turn

Chancellor Philip Hammond has been forced to make a ‘screeching’ U-turn on National Insurance contributions (NICs) for the self-employed.

In his budget statement last week, the Chancellor said that he wanted to increase Class 4 NICs, which are only paid by self-employed workers, by two pence in the pound in 2019. 

Following heavy criticism from Tory backbenchers, the media and the self-employed community, the Chancellor has dropped this policy.

The SNP leader in Westminster Angus Robertson called it a “screeching” U-turn while Labour said the move was “humiliating”. 

Tool: Check your IR35 status before April

HMRC has launched a new tool designed to help contractors, and those that engage them, decide a worker’s IR35 status.

But with less than a month to go before a fundamental change in the way IR35 rules are applied, some experts have found cause for concern with the Employment Status Indicator tool.

A contractor’s IR35 status is all about whether the contract they are working on should be considered employed or self-employed for tax purposes. The Employment Status Service is supposed to give HMRC’s view of whether a contract is inside or outside IR35.

This will be of particular interest to limited company contractors working in the public sector because, from April, it will be the public sector organisations that decide on IR35 status instead of the individual. 

PPI Deadline: Only 1 in 5 PPI policies checked

At the same time as setting a final deadline for claims, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has admitted that as few as one in five payment protection insurance (PPI) policies have been claimed for so far.

After 29 August 2019, consumers who were mis-sold PPI won’t be able to make a compliant, meaning they could miss the opportunity to claim back thousands of pounds of compensation.

The FCA revealed that only 13 million genuine PPI complaints had been made so far, while they estimate that up to 64 million PPI policies were sold between 1990 and 2010.

Although it is unclear how many of these policies were mis-sold, the 2019 deadline gives a very large number of complainants little over two years to make a claim.

18 perks employees get that freelancers have to pay for

Freelancers and self-employed people will be well accustomed to criticism from employed friends and colleagues.

Philip Hammond’s final Spring budget statement was met with fury from the self-employed community when the Chancellor broke a manifesto promise and increased taxes on the self-employed.

Winner of the 'Customer Services Survey' Chocolate Hamper
Editor | 6 March 2017
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Thank you to all our customers who participated in our customer services survey. Your feedback is important to us and will be used to make continuous improvements to our service.

All the participants were put in a hat and we are delighted to announce that Sarah is the winner of the chocolate hamper.

"I was really surprised and pleased when I heard I'd won the hamper. I think as a quality profession customer feedback is really important and it's nice to see that it's acted upon with Umbrella.co.uk. Thank you for all the help and support you provide." Sarah C

Congratulations to Stacey Moses who wins Umbrella.co.uk employee of the month

“Congratulations to our Contracts Manager Stacey Moses who has won Umbrella.co.uk’s Employee of the Month for February. Stacey consistently goes above and beyond, volunteering to take on new tasks enthusiastically. Stacey has proactively grown her knowledge and gained experience of several functions of the business over the past two years. Well done Stacey” – Peter Langham, Customer Services Director