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When did the expression "Self Employment" become prevalent. I tend to think it was HMRC themselves who promoted its use by officially naming the section of the Self Assessment tax return for those who ran their own businesses as the "Self Employment Supplementary Pages".
Prior to that, the more common term was "Sole Trading" - which, to my mind, gives a far more accurate picture of what the status actually is supposed to be.
I've never really understood how a person could actually "employ" themselves.
What a strange view. People have been calling themselves self-employed for decades, without any reference to HMRC (sic). I remember my own father announcing to the family that he had decided to leave his job and become S/E.
I'm certainly not claiming that HMRC invented the term.
It's just that for many years the more accurate expression "sole trader" was used - especially amongst the more formal accounting and tax professionals.
The old technique for determining "trading" status was called "The Badges of Trade" - and that test is still used today in various versions and even forms the core of more recent "status" tests - such as IR35.
HMRC more or "legitimised" the term "Self Employment" by using it as their official definition of "sole trading" for their self assessment legislation.
I much prefer "sole trading" as it reminds people that this category requires that the individual is actually supposed to be operating a business i.e. actually trading in some way other.
would love to see details of the 'employee's P&L...wonder if he claimed use of home/spouse salary/expenses for travelling from home to 'work' etc. I also wonder what the pay rate was, was it significantly more than an employee on a similar contract. That of course doesn't clarify if he was truly self employed, but I am sure with the help of a solicitor he could see there was an opportunity to have his cake (get paid at a higher rate whilst claiming all respective expenses) and then get backdated holiday pay etc.
I can't agree with this analysis at all. Mr Smith in the Pimlico Plumbers case was found to be a worker, not an employee, which is a broader category and has no tax implications at all - workers are taxed in exactly the same way as the self-employed.
He did in fact take Pimlico Plumbers to the employment tribunal in the basis that he was an employee (as well as a worker), and lost that aspect of the case, both at first instance and in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. He did not appeal that finding to the Court of Appeal, which therefore did not have to consider it. So the Revenue have not lost anything here.
Staggering £4bn. Mr Fisher please if you are going to use figures in your offerings make sure you quantify them. This may look a big figure but it is tiny when compared with the sums raised through income tax and NIC.
The term "worker" originated from the EU and has been used by the self-employed to gain holiday pay etc. There is no such thing as a "worker" and the quicker we get rid the better.
In law there is no definition of employment status and it has been left t0 tribunals to decide each case on its merits. This is total nonsense. Since when has HMRC got the right to determine employment status or even challenge it. It is a commercial decision not a political one.
MTD(1/4 figures), Dividend tax, Mortgage interest depletion and IR35 will destroy the small business and watch the governments coffers empty pdq as the workforce decreases and benefit goes up..