Ive had my hours Cut again!

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TBPITW 13-14th Sept 08

mattharrisuk:

Its £80 a page.
I'm getting £50 though, cause I'm a journalistic virgin -cough-extortion-cough-

Any moneys fine with me at the moment though.

When I wrote my first piece of freelance for Future 'back in the day', the particular magazine published my name as 'Tim De Vile' and paid me 3 months later :)

You'll get paid on the 28th (as long as your piece was signed off by the preceeding 12th) unless you're down as self employed (ie. you do your own taxes etc)

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James De Vile
digitalcameramagazine.co.uk
Future Publishing

JD:

mattharrisuk:

Its £80 a page.
I'm getting £50 though, cause I'm a journalistic virgin -cough-extortion-cough-

Any moneys fine with me at the moment though.

When I wrote my first piece of freelance for Future 'back in the day', the particular magazine published my name as 'Tim De Vile' and paid me 3 months later :)

You'll get paid on the 28th (as long as your piece was signed off by the preceeding 12th) unless you're down as self employed (ie. you do your own taxes etc)

 

I expect you inform the local tax office if it's not PAYE.  

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FACES,STREET,PROTEST & CANDID
A BLOG
My Flickr

Alaaan!
Would you expect any less of me?!

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The all new Matt Harris Photography
DCM Gallery

Read an article in Private Eye today. They've been trying for 3 years to get the figures from HMRC as to how much tax fraud and error there is, via the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Information Commissioner ruled in their favour but HMRC appealed but gave in apparently 'on the court steps'. They really, really didn't want Private Eye to have those figures.

Turns out that they estimate £42 billion tax goes missing each year, £15bn of which is legal tax avoidance. They also estimate £12bn of VAT fraud.

The most recent figures I found for social security fraud and error was £3.5bn, about a third of which was the 'error' ie the benefits peeps cocked it up.

So why is it that week in, week out, we're bombarded with sinister 'we're watching you' type adverts about social security fraud which do nothing except frighten old people  from claiming Pension Credit, yet we hear nothing about Tax fraud? And why are the benefits fraud figures published each year but tax fraud was kept secret until dragged out of them in a lengthy legal dispute?

Note; DWP estimate that between £4.8bn and £8bn of means tested benefits goes unclaimed every year and the government also estimated that £5bn of Tax Credits goes unclaimed each year.

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BPitW 9-10 June 2007.
My website My flickr

veggiesosage:

Turns out that they estimate £42 billion tax goes missing each year, £15bn of which is legal tax avoidance.

Then that would be £26 bn per year

I forget who said it (maybe Lord Justice Wolf - it was a high court ruling anyway) but one of my favourite quotes about tax goes something like

No man is under any obligation to structure his affairs so that he pays one iota more tax than he needs to.

Basically the law says how much tax you have to pay. Pay it and you're good. Don't and you deserve to be called a tax cheat.

As a case in point, the government a long time ago removed the upper limit on employER's NI. This led a lot of people to set up limited companies which suited the government just fine because they are taxed differently and they could collect VAT. It suited them because they hired a lot of these companies for their own work and could get rid of them without severance pay. It suited them because once you are a director of a limited company it's very hard to ever claim income support/whatever and if you are "on the bench" you don't count as unemployed for their headline figures. It meant that if a person running a limited company defaulted on their tax it was their company not the ultimate hirer who was responsible. Pretty soon in many industries you couldn't get freelance work without running a limited company.

Then the government decided they wanted more money. So they drafted what has been described as the worst piece of tax legislation ever (though they have had a few more goes to top it) and ruled that small companies under certain ill defined conditions could not pay their employees holiday pay, sick pay, adequate expenses to run a business or training expenses. That all their turnover less 5% expenses (and even that was a climb down) was personal profit for the MD. Then they branded everybody who didn't stump up the extra cash a "tax cheat". They made sure that the legislation was so complicated and the penalties so severe that many people paid tax they didn't owe out of fear.

Amongst the most hilarious rules is that to determine your tax status you have to look at all contracts up and down the chain. Some of these (especially those issued by government departments) are commercial confidence. So a person has to guess their status from information they are prohibited from viewing. Get in wrong (and the IR get to see all the contracts) and the penalties and fines are several hundred percent of the tax. I'm not too up on poker but I think that's similar to high stakes Texas Hold Em. With the added benefit you could actually go to prison if they disagree with you.

And yes, I ran a very successful IT company. And yes we were targeted for investigation using borderline legal methods. (My favourite was the initial meeting with the IR where I was denied access to my accountant or legal advice and which was supposed to be a standard records check. When I said that I would have to check before handing over some irrelevant information that was in commercial confidence with my client the investigator looked me right in the eye and said "you wouldn't believe how fast I could get a court order". I thought I was on the set of a bad 80s police drama. I had to feign a coughing fit to cover my laughter - then I realised they were serious.)

Several months (I think it was 18 but I'm trying to forget) and a HUGE accountant's bill later they finally agreed that we didn't owe them an extra £50 - £250K in tax (nobody ever knew what the amount was - it was far in excess of turnover...) "as long as all the affidavits are true...".

So yeah, they are probably counting me as part of that £15bn.

On a lighter note....I saw an estimate of how many tax forms the IR (or HMRC now) get wrong. An internal audit discovered that when you ask the tax office to work out the tax for you on a personal assessment form they occasionally get it wrong. The figure I saw was between 30 and 40% of the time.......reasons quoted included that the forms were "too complex".

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Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

Jonathan Ryan:

Then that would be £26 bn per year

Er, maybe £27bn...

Heh, no wonder they had another look at your tax calculations

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BPitW 9-10 June 2007.
My website My flickr

Just picked up my ipod and discovered that everything has gone. All my music and photos.

VERY ANNOYED.

Has anyone else experienced this and is there a way to get it all back, other than spending time on the PC .

Thanks

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My DCM Gallery

Jedi boy:

Has anyone else experienced this and is there a way to get it all back, other than spending time on the PC .

Thanks

Um, drop it in the cradle?

iTunes takes care of all that kind of stuff for me. I seem to remember my old school iPod getting wiped once but a quick sync fixed it.

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Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

Happened to my photography teacher, she said it was because she didn't use the safe remove method thing... 

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Thanks Jonathon. Will give it a go. Fingers crossed.

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My DCM Gallery

What annoyned me...

come to the final stages of completing my bench for technology and theres a damn problem.

Apparently the lid is to long to be lifted off (you take it off to be used as a kneeling pad for those who read it and though..'pftt just use hinges dumbass')  so the handles will come in when you lift as its apparently the natural thing that your body does to bring your arms in etc... something to do with physics apparentl, its not a tuesday or friday so i'm not in the mood for physics.

 

oh and got a tonne of work to be done over the weekend.

Finnaly note: I HATE LOGARITHMS

 

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Craig_1591:

Happened my photography teacher she said it was because she didn't use the safe remove method thing... 

Are we talking photography here or birth control?

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FACES,STREET,PROTEST & CANDID
A BLOG
My Flickr

ABERS:

Craig_1591:

Happened to my photography teacher, she said it was because she didn't use the safe remove method thing... 

Are we talking photography here or birth control?

she said she wanted kids (not with me before anyone else twists it!!)

that safety remove hard drive thingy

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Craig_1591:

ABERS:

Craig_1591:

Happened to my photography teacher, she said it was because she didn't use the safe remove method thing... 

Are we talking photography here or birth control?

she said she wanted kids (not with me before anyone else twists it!!)

that safety remove hard drive thingy

Ahh.....so we are talking birth control then??

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Phil Jackson
My DCM Gallery