umbrella Articles

Some public sector contractors missing out on 30% of income after IR35 changes

Some self-employed contractors lost 30% of their income in the wake of IR35 reforms that took effect in the public sector this in April.

As the dust settles around the changes IT recruitment company, CW Jobs, found that more than 70% of their clients saw a reduction in income after the IR35 reforms.

Of these contractors, a quarter saw a reduction close to 30%.

The IR35 reforms mean that contractors who work solely or primarily for public sector bodies are being taxed as if they were regular employees of that company. But are no receiving any of the accompanying benefits such as such pay or holiday entitlement. 

FreeAgent Partner Meeting,Umbrella,Accountants,Contractor Accountants,Contractor

On the 5th July our Operations Director, Neil Armitage, will be attending the Strategic FreeAgent Partnership Meeting up at FreeAgent Headquarters up in Edinburgh.  

We’ve attended every partner summit so far and taken part in the self-employed tax summit.

Our partnership with FreeAgent is important to us as a practice as it’s the leading cloud platform for contractor accountancy which means we can be part of steering the direction FreeAgent travels so that we can provide even greater levels of service and portal usability to clients. We will report back after the meeting on developments that will affect our clients.

FreeAgent’s highlights from the Accountex show
marketing | 24 May 2017
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Rise of the robots

FreeAgent’s CEO Ed Molyneux took to the stage to deliver his keynote speech ‘Rise of the Robots: Accountancy at the Crossroads’, which examined the future of the profession in an ever-changing technological environment.  

FreeAgent and NatWest have joined forces

FreeAgent were delighted to be joined by their new partners, NatWest at the conference.

CCO, Kevin McCallum, and Head of Business Banking at NatWest, Haydn Thomas, co-hosted a seminar on the new open banking legislation and what this means for the accountancy profession. They also took some time after the event to chat to AccountingWEB about financial technology for accountants - watch the video on FreeAgent’s website.

Have you tried the FreeAgent Mobile App?
marketing | 28 April 2017
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If you’ve tried it before and not got on with it or never installed it then now is a great time to pick it up for your smartphone and see the powerful list of features that you can control from a simple touchscreen.

With banking, tax notifications, time tracking and a slick new interface all added over the last two years since it’s launch the mobile app really does cram a lot of functionality into the App.

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. 

taylor review, umbrella, Theresa May, employment rights, contracting, worker's rights, self-employment,

The review was commissioned last year by Theresa May to investigate modern employment practices after reports of some workers earning as little as £2.50 an hour through self-employment, which affords none of the protections than a normal employee receives.

In order to reduce costs in competitive marketplaces many companies have taken on workers but classed them as “self-employed” meaning they save money on national insurance and the worker is put at a disadvantage by missing out on a number of standard employment rights.

The current system of taking an “employer” to a tribunal to prove that they are in fact an employer and should be treating their employees with a more significant duty of care is both costly and time consuming. It is unlikely many workers will want to bite the hand that feeds it so they are trapped in a situation that means longer hours for less pay.

Our staff will be observing a minute's silence today at 11am
marketing | 25 May 2017
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Umbrella.co.uk are a Manchester based company. Our staff will be observing a minute's silence today in remembrance of all those who lost their lives in the Manchester concert bombing.

The silence at 11am today will also mark the nation's solidarity with those who were injured in the blast as well as all those affected by the atrocity.

We thank our customers for their patience whilst our phone systems are turned off for 1-2 minutes.

Umbrella Accountants will be attending at Accountex 2017!

Accountex combines a world-class conference and exhibition dedicated to Accountancy Professionals. Umbrella Accountants are despatching Ricky Patidar to catch up on all the latest technology at the exhibition at the Excel Centre in London

Exhibiting at the show will be Cloud Accounting specialists such as FreeAgent, Sage, Receipt Bank, Expensify and Xero. We’re always looking to discover how cutting edge cloud-based platforms can make a difference to our clients – the more automation available and the more accurate the information the more time our contractors can spend away from their accounts. 

Important changes in the new tax year

The new tax year is here and it has brought with it the usual soup of tax and regulatory changes. This year there are a number of important changes that will affect contractors, including new IR35 rules, changes to the flat rate VAT scheme and new income tax rates.

Some of the changes will be received positively – others, less so. Here we summarise the most important April changes for contractors. 

Winner of the 'Customer Services Survey' Chocolate Hamper
marketing | 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

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