"Dodgy" offshore schemes

[jbryce]

I've just learned that the holding company of the provider I spoke with yesterday bought an accounting firm in Aberdeen with 1,000 contractors on their books with the specific aim of farming these clients into the "solution". My back-of-a-fag-packet calculations suggest that this could be worth about £15million in fees to the provider. This is crazy money.

...and, as one of the stupid gets who considered one of these 'umbrella' companies as an efficient way of working and skipping tax hassles, it does amaze me that people are still falling into this.

Being a cunning chap I've managed to speak to three users of the Con-a-way scheme over the last couple of weeks - one I managed to convince to leave, the other thought that the scheme was watertight and would continue.

Some schemes may well be bomb proof, but who's going to have the cash/time to convince a court of the fact?

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Well that puts a whole new perspective on buying out accountants!

Maybe that's why the SJD/NW deal seemed so overvalued

[cojak]

In that case we await NLUK's future posts on this matter with interest...

[tarbera]

I've just learned that the holding company of the provider I spoke with yesterday bought an accounting firm with 1,000 contractors on their books with the specific aim of farming these clients into the "solution". My back-of-a-fag-packet calculations suggest that this could be worth about £15million in fees to the provider. This is crazy money.

Poor Lisa, she gave good advise till now

[Ebenezer]

I've stopped being surprised by how widespread membership of these schemes seems to be.

I used to think this was rather a niche undertaking, but three of the last three client sites I have been at have contained at least one contractor who openly discussed being in such a scheme, including one who claimed to be in the same "payment solution" as Jimmy Carr.

[BlasterBates]

With so many contractors getting into these schemes should contractors be allowed to be contractors. A bit like letting anyone drive a car without a licence or build their own home nuclear reactor.

[cojak]

There should be a way of going after providers as I think that this is borderline criminal fraud.

I think that there is a business opportunity for anyone in this industry to set themselves up as a company to sue the directors.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Poor Lisa, she gave good advise till now

Huh? What's that now

Oh and - advice

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

There should be a way of going after providers as I think that this is borderline criminal fraud..

Couldn't agree more but I would also extend that to anyone recommending that contractors use these dodgy schemes

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

With so many contractors getting into these schemes should contractors be allowed to be contractors. A bit like letting anyone drive a car without a licence or build their own home nuclear reactor.

Trouble is we all have to start somewhere and the first baby steps as a contractor could lead you on a happy path which you will follow, without incident, for years or straight down a huge black hole with no ladder. I think that newbie contractors probably struggle to find the right information - we know it's out there (or on here if you will) but then again we know where to look and what to look for. As an example - if you didn't know anything about IR35, would you know to ask? Who would tell you that you needed to know? The client? The agency? No, because it's not their responsibility to advise you. I can see how newbie contractors get in a muddle and I can see how many get tempted by the offers put out their by dodgy scheme providers - in some cases it's blatant greed but in others I think it's just ignorance of the facts.