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Umbrella Companies - News and Views
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Taking the Plunge Moving from Umbrella Company Employee to Ltd Company Director
As an umbrella company contractor, you’ve already proven that you have the mettle to execute bold transitions: you’ve walked away from the comfort zone of permanent salaried employment to venture in to the more exciting but less predictable world of freelance contracting. Can you make another similar transition? A good number of umbrella company contractors do [...] -
Contractor Finances Umbrella Companies and Financial Survival Plunder Your Piggy Bank
The average contractor working through an Umbrella Company may well face periods of worklessness every so often which can last anything from a few weeks to a few months, especially in the current economic climate. But mortgages, council taxes, grocery costs and much other expenditure have a relentlessly clockwork regularity to them, blithely indifferent to [...] -
The Contractor, the Umbrella Company and the Subsistence Allowance – Some Rules of Thumb
It can be a tad confusing for the jobbing contractor working through an umbrella company to figure out his or her eligibility for travel and subsistence expenses. Here are a few rules of thumb which should help clarify the situation. Eligibility rests on whether or not HMRC considers your workplace temporary or permanent. If you work [...] -
Umbrella Companies, the National Minimum Wage and the Government: A Dubious Loophole Closes
With many a jobbing contractor working for umbrella companies, the new coalition government’s announcement this week that it will set about closing a loophole in National Minimum Wage (NMW) rules may come as good news. The move comes in the wake of evidence that some umbrella companies have been paying their contracting staff below the [...] -
The FCSA Code of Conduct Gets Another Thumbs Up
We recently reported on the impressive success of the Freelancer and Contractor Services Association (FCSA), which recently attracted accolades from the prestigious Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo). In addition to the FCSA’s vigorous and successful lobbying on behalf of umbrella company workers (it dissuaded the previous government from proceeding with planned cuts to tax [...] -
Umbrella Companies What to Look Out For
Whilst the new Lib-Con coalition government’s recent announcement of its decision to review IR35 will be welcomed by every IT Contractor in the land, in the interim, the problem of how to avoid falling foul of the legislation remains. Any contract which is deemed by IR35’s status test to fall within the scope of the [...] -
Thinking of Setting yourself up as an IT Contractor?
If the joys of employment in the IT world are beginning to wear a little thin and you could imagine earning more and living more flexibly, you are probably starting to think about the prospect of setting up as an IT contractor. If you can cope with the disadvantages (hunting for new work when your [...] -
Contractor Question – Which umbrella company can you recommend?
In response to the question “Which umbrella company can you recommend?” we asked Umbrella Company expert Jonathan Hughes for his advice. “The advantages that a contractor gets from using an umbrella company centre around the convenience and benefits that they offer: Umbrella companies are a no risk option in today’s IR35 contracting environment. They offer [...]