Contracting - don't know what I need to know!

[Royalbloo]

Soooo...my current role has been made redundant and I'm on garden leave until mid-August. I've been offered a 3 month contracting role for then, for an accountancy firm who will help me set up a ltd company and ensure tax and NI are paid.

I really want to do it and I think it'll be great experience for me, but I'm well aware there is a LOT I don't know about the contracting/self-employment world and when I try to look up information I get loads of irrelevant info.

Can anyone help regarding vital info I need to know and what I can claim VAT back on (?) please. I have no one to ask in real life!

Many thanks!

Umbrella companies are a NIGHTMARE to work with. I’m a lawyer in financial services whose clients are large financial institutions that have instituted blanket policies that they will not consider outside IR35 engagements. I’ve been forced into the umbrella model and getting it set up has been SOOO painful. What makes it really irksome is that I often can’t get anyone on the phone or email - everything just goes into a call centre and maybe you’ll get a response and maybe you won’t.

They also just fouled up a boatload of pension contributions - including mine - and mistakenly informed the pension provider we had all quit the scheme. We didn’t know till the provider (a reputable investment firm) sent a letter “confirming” the change. I phoned the umbrella in outrage and when I finally got someone on the phone he said he would “look into it” (still haven’t heard anything from them). I phoned the pension provider immediately after that to find out where the instructions to cancel my participation had come from and they said immediately “let me guess, your employer is [umbrella]. They’ve done this for a whole raft of employees in error.”

In my area, contracts that used to be around £850/£900 per day outside IR35 are now £1250-£1300 inside IR35.
A ltd company is still worth it if you can partner with other contractors. There is a significant benefit to the client of using you then.