You start a new contract as the outsider, and everybody (who doesn’t already know you) treats you with suspicion. My plan for a new contract is always to produce something tangible in the first week. It could be a neat way to solve a problem, a simple explanation to a problem experienced by several colleagues, or a new report/data set/macro.
After that you may be asked for your advice, and you should work hard to give it as simply as possible. Then you get asked more questions, which develop into trust. It never happens overnight, but a freelance contractor is a resource to be valued and used!
I am an independent SAS consultant and have been working through my own company, Holland Numerics Limited, since 1992. In the UK the vast majority of IT contractors use Limited companies when working for other companies, which protect both the contractors and their clients. Contractors also benefit from the clients paying their company, and then the company paying them, so there can be tax and National Insurance savings. This has been seen by Labour and Conservative governments as tax avoidance, and the Labour government introduced IR35 legislation in 2000 to restrict these benefits for contractors who are also company directors when they were only working for a single client, labelled as “deemed employees”. This forced contractors to pay the same tax and National Insurance as permanent employees, but without any employee benefits.
It should be noted here that permanent employees receive a number of benefits as part of their employment, but contractors have to pay for these themselves:
payroll processing, including tax and National Insurance payments
pension payments
employer National Insurance contributions
business-related insurance
travel expenses
conference attendance fees
equipment purchase
office facilities
Until now the responsibility of stating whether a contractor is inside or outside IR35 and paying the correct tax and National Insurance payments has been with the contractor’s company, but the reforms move these responsibilities to the client (determining IR35 status) and agency (paying the correct tax and National Insurance payments). Some companies have already decided to set the IR35 status of all of their contractors to inside, including Lloyds Bank, Barclays and GlaxoSmithKline, making them “deemed employees”. The following article describes the issues of this reform for contractors and companies:
There is now a question about what can contractors do to stay outside of IR35, and then persuade their clients not to state that they are inside. I can’t claim to be an expert on this subject, but I can suggest some organisations who are much better qualified to answer this question. The following links will help to explain the problem and possible solutions:
