Tax Loopholes for Council Staff Options

[Grumpy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17927792

These tax fiddles have been going on locally for several years. Higher paid workers have been made redundant (Taking a large redundancy payment). They are then re-engaged as consultants to do the same job. The employee saves on income tax and the employer saves on National Insurance.

I wonder what an FOI request would reveal at Market Street as to how many are having their wages paid via a limited company.

[user23]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17927792

These tax fiddles have been going on locally for several years. Higher paid workers have been made redundant (Taking a large redundancy payment). They are then re-engaged as consultants to do the same job. The employee saves on income tax and the employer saves on National Insurance.

Council staff are not Civil Servants.

[Grumpy]

Council staff are not Civil Servants.

That seemed to touch a raw nerve very quickly. Do you work for the council by any chance?

[user23]

That seemed to touch a raw nerve very quickly. Do you work for the council by any chance?

Just correcting your mistake, no need for the trolling.

[Andy Capp]

Council staff are not Civil Servants.

The same policy could still be happening locally though. Even the private sector do this.

[John C]

Council staff are not Civil Servants.

Some of them seem to think they are

[spartacus]

Even the private sector do this.

It's not locally, it's nationally. And it's certainly very common in the private sector to make staff redundant and re-employ them on a contract basis. Vodafone for one have been doing this locally for years. A lot of their contracted staff have previously been employed on full time basis by them. Many of them now run their own Limited Companies with them as the sole employee and work back at VF. Old news.

[NWNREADER]

Good points. Numerous BBC programmes are now made by independent companies run by the 'stars'.....
People working self-employed are entitled to a range of tax-claimable 'benefits', but no work = no pay.........
No sick benefit
No unemployment benefit
No work pension
No (?) days off - any day can be a work day


Sure, the system can be abused, and anyone in the Public Sector, Banks or politics is easy meat, but the practice is age old, widespread and usually totally legal. I doubt the individual categories of (ex) employee could be barred from following the path.

[NWNREADER]

Good points. Numerous BBC programmes are now made by independent companies run by the 'stars'.....
People working self-employed are entitled to a range of tax-claimable 'benefits', but no work = no pay.........
No sick benefit
No unemployment benefit
No work pension
No (?) days off - any day can be a work day


Sure, the system can be abused, and anyone in the Public Sector, Banks or politics is easy meat, but the practice is age old, widespread and usually totally legal. I doubt the individual categories of (ex) employee could be barred from following the path.

[Andy Capp]

We heard you the first time!

[NWNREADER]

We heard you the first time!

Pardon?

[NWNREADER]

We heard you the first time!

Pardon?

[blackdog]

It's hard to view it as an abuse of the 'system' when the system is encouraging it and doing exactly this with great tranches of the civil service (I see they are now privatising the civil service pension scheme).

Direct labour is very often more costly than contract labour - even if the individual worker is paid more the reduction in overheads makes it attractive to the employer - and that's not considering the benefit to the employer of the employee's loss of employment rights.

[Berkshirelad]

Council staff are not Civil Servants.

Correct. They are neither civil nor servile.