1st Charity Event – the London Marathon

by Russ on March 22, 2010

On 26th April Glen Reeve, with the support and sponsorship of ContractorUmbrella, will be running for 26 miles; just imagine running 26 miles! For most of us the thought of running for a bus is exhausting – the marathon course is further than the distance between England and France ! So why is Glen doing this? And more to the point why is he doing it when he’s over 50 years old (sorry Glen).

This is why: In February 1987 Paul O’Gorman died of Leukaemia; he was just 14 years old. Within the same year his sister Jean was also killed by Cancer, a devastating blow to the O’Gorman family. Despite these tragedies Paul and Jean’s parents began fundraising so that they could help other children with Leukaemia and also fulfill a promise that they had made to Paul before he died. Paul continues to inspire the work of CHILDREN with LEUKAEMIA. What started as a small memorial charity is now the UK ’s leading charity dedicated to the conquest of childhood leukaemia through pioneering research, new treatments and the support of leukaemic children and their families. The incredible scientific advances made have ensured that 4 out of 5 children now survive Leukaemia but, alarmingly, incidence of Leukaemia have been rising steadily for the last 50 years. Glen would like your help to raise money for this wonderful cause and therefore we would ask you to donate as much or as little as you can afford.

Please click the following link and ContractorUmbrella will match all donations made pound for pound – http://www.contractorumbrella.com/charities.html

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ContractorUmbrella’s Charity Plans for 2010

by Russ on February 10, 2010

In 2010 our members of staff will be either running, walking, jumping out of planes or hosting an online silent auction depending on their age, fitness, ability and degree of sanity. To make things even more interesting (or possibly dangerous) we are asking for suggestions for fund raising events that we can carry out over the course of the year.

ContractorUmbrella’s chosen charities for 2010 are Children with Leukaemia and Cancer Research UK and we are determined to raise as much cash as possible for these 2 incredibly worthwhile organisations.

For more details or to make a fundraising suggestion please visit http://www.contractorumbrella.com/charities.html.

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Scale Rate Payments (or Daily Allowance)

November 25, 2009

I for one, consider it good news that HMR&C are considering asking for receipts to prove scale rate expense claims are warranted. This might help to put an end to the misleading marketing claims made by certain Umbrella Companies who are making promises of 80 or even 85% of their gross income value.
HMRC originally introduced [...]

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Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Regulations 2003

November 16, 2009

The regulations were introduced to give low-skilled agency workers protection from being exploited by work seeker companies (employment agencies). Contractors were however also being included within this legislation, although an option to ‘opt-out’ of the legislation was agreed, which caused confusion within the industry and amongst individuals so the government proposed to update and further [...]

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Unscrupulous Umbrella Companies

November 4, 2009

If you are going to use the services of an Umbrella Company to handle your pay, why would an estimated take home pay figure be more important than the service you are likely to receive?  
I personally blame the unscrupulous Umbrella Companies who suggest that they can net contractors a higher take home pay. This [...]

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Tax saving scheme or financial russian roulette?

October 27, 2009

It is human nature that people will look for ways to save money and advertisements promising 85% or even 90% take home pay from your earnings will always be tempting. So, is it possible? Yes, definitely. Is it risk free? Definitely not? In fact, you can quite safely say that the risks attached to ‘tax saving’ schemes are astronomically high.

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Umbrella Company Take Home Pay

October 26, 2009

One of the most common questions that I am asked is how an umbrella company can ‘maximise’ a contractors’ earnings; the answer is that it can’t. All umbrella companies operate in exactly the same way and all are governed by rules and regulations that are applied by HM Revenue and Customs.
That said, I am sure [...]

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Retrospective Tax

October 26, 2009

Anyone who has seen the film Minority Report will understand the concept of punishment for a crime before it has happened based on the visions of the thought police. A thought provoking fantasy, one would think, without any basis in reality…….until now.
It is common knowledge that HMR&C are currently exploring the many uses for retrospective [...]

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Contractor and Freelancer Advice

October 26, 2009

There have been so many questions by new contractors about umbrella companies and the way that they work that I thought I would start a blog to try and answer the most common questions. Firstly and most importantly all umbrella companies are governed by the same rules. All will process your payments through PAYE (Pay [...]

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What is a dispensation?

October 26, 2009

If you have researched umbrella companies you will probably have come across the term ‘Dispensation’ or even ‘Special Dispensation’. It is a word that, for some companies, forms the basis of advertising and marketing campaigns e.g. ‘Contractor dispensation – high take home pay’ or ‘HMR&C approved expenses dispensation’. So, will an umbrella company’s dispensation increase [...]

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