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Freelancers face selling homes as MPs urge Chancellor to offer more help

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    Freelancers face selling homes as MPs urge Chancellor to offer more help

    “ Freelancers ineligible for state aid face closing down decades-old businesses and selling homes as the pandemic sparks the worst economic contraction for 300 years.

    One 47-year-old company director said he might have to make his parents homeless in order to pay his creditors after the crisis forced him to liquidate his once successful one-man consultancy, which is now laden with debts.

    He is one of a growing number of directors forced to borrow from their own company after vast drops in their income meant they could not pay themselves as normal.

    He is now personally liable to pay back a £50,000 director’s loan and is terrified that liquidators will come after his only significant asset – his parents’ home.

    “I bought my parents’ house from them five years ago because my father was trapped in a bad mortgage deal and was not able to retire. The whole idea was to give them peace of mind, but now I have had to sit down with them and tell them we may have to sell. I’m having sleepless nights just thinking about it,” he said.

    After 11 successful years as a freelancer in the banking industry he said companies were no longer outsourcing work to contractors because they could not justify the cost at the same time as making permanent members of staff redundant. New tax rules have also put off large businesses from using contractors.“

    Freelancers face selling homes as MPs urge Chancellor to offer more help

    Fire in the comments section there...

    #2
    “ BRITISH BROWN FEMALE 29 Nov 2020 3:33PM

    @Michael Anderson I've known 100's of IT contractors and every single one has fiddled their taxes! From the offshore scam to the faked expenses to the director's loans it just goes on and on and one.

    Now admittedly this was 10-20 years ago so maybe IT contractors are more honest nowadays although not judging from the 47 year old in this article who clearly was trying very fiddle in the book not to pay any tax!”

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by AtW View Post
      “Now admittedly this was 10-20 years ago so maybe IT contractors are more honest nowadays although not judging from the 47 year old in this article who clearly was trying very fiddle in the book not to pay any tax!”
      Hard to disagree with the comment about the IT contractor in the story .... I'm struggling to understand how someone who has contracted for years can rack up so much debt in 6 months, and now needs to sell a house to pay back £50k. Something smells fishy.
      I am what I drink, and I'm a bitter man

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Whorty View Post
        I'm struggling to understand how someone who has contracted for years can rack up so much debt in 6 months.
        He probably took investment advice from some bloke off the internet that can draw colourful graphs

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by oracleslave View Post
          He probably took investment advice from some bloke off the internet that can draw colourful graphs
          Good point .... was the debt due to a Put trade that went belly up?
          I am what I drink, and I'm a bitter man

          Comment


            #6
            “ For as long as Anna-Jane Casey can remember she has spent the run-up to Christmas on the stage in the West End. But this year Casey is joining a growing army of workers from Covid-blighted industries to deliver an unprecedented volume of parcels across the UK.

            “It’s gone bonkers. Last week both myself and my husband were doing 180 to 200 parcels a day,” she said. “People are so lovely when they get their things but I want to scream in their faces ‘stop ordering stuff’!”

            Casey, 48, who has appeared in shows including Chicago and Billy Elliot, and her husband, who is also an actor, were forced to search for work when all the theatres closed in March. “I have a mortgage and two children to support. I have responsibilities,” she said. “What do you do when your earnings have literally gone? We had to find work where we could.””

            Actors, pilots, oil workers … thousands from Covid-blighted jobs join parcel courier army | Couriers/delivery industry | The Guardian

            No 50 grand to loan for these poor sods...

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by AtW View Post
              “ BRITISH BROWN FEMALE 29 Nov 2020 3:33PM

              @Michael Anderson I've known 100's of IT contractors and every single one has fiddled their taxes! From the offshore scam to the faked expenses to the director's loans it just goes on and on and one.

              Now admittedly this was 10-20 years ago......”
              It was ******* awesome.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by AtW View Post
                “It’s gone bonkers. Last week both myself and my husband were doing 180 to 200 parcels a day,” she said. “People are so lovely when they get their things but I want to scream in their faces ‘stop ordering stuff’!”
                Then they'll be out of work altogether.

                They should be encouraging the punters to order more tat .The whole country can get delivery jobs if we move from a service based consumer society to just a consumer society getting it all delivered. All it needs is endless 'as good as free, worry about paying it back later' credit, like the government have been finding down the back of the houses of parliament sofa.

                A bit of genuine sofa news.
                Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down. Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Whorty View Post
                  Hard to disagree with the comment about the IT contractor in the story .... I'm struggling to understand how someone who has contracted for years can rack up so much debt in 6 months, and now needs to sell a house to pay back £50k. Something smells fishy.

                  You didn't notice that most contractors are living invoice to invoice.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by clearedforlanding View Post
                    You didn't notice that most contractors are living invoice to invoice.
                    Reading between the lines, this guy has been siphoning cash out the business tax free via 'loans' and presumably spaffing it up the wall on flash cars and houses far too big and expensive. Crazy. I have zero sympathy for these people.
                    I am what I drink, and I'm a bitter man

                    Comment

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