There’s 1.4 million of them. They put £2.5bn a year into the British economy. They keep all sorts of things going by making skilled resources available on short notice for as long as they’re needed in all kinds of environments. They are largely unique to the UK. But nobody knows who they are.
I’m talking about us, of course. Freelance contractors. Workers who sell our skills on the open market to a variety of clients. We prefer not to work for any other company than our own. We take responsibility for our own work, we charge a market rate for it and we pay our proper share of tax.
So why does the Government hate us?
Primarola did her work well. When IR35 was being introduced, she branded us as people who incorporate purely to save tax and therefore deprive HMG of income to which it was rightly entitled. That attitude has persisted ever since, and many MPs of all parties still think we work through limited companies to avoid taxes. In truth, if we didn’t we wouldn’t be able to work at all. Thanks to S44-7 ITEPA 2003, formerly known as S134c, agencies will not take on self-employed people in case they get lumbered for their tax liabilities. Since they control 90% of the work out there, we have to use Limited Companies or not get work.
The reason HMG gets away with this continuing misrepresentation is because we are, by our very nature, a disparate and independent bunch: someone I know once described attempts at leading us as “like herding cats”. PCG has had a very good go at getting us recognised as a group, and has had some notable success, but to far too many people, we are mavericks out to somehow cheat the state.
We not only need a single identity, we need people to understand it and recognise it, or be forever doomed to working in the shadows.
So on November 23rd, we start to fight back in anger. PCG are launching a National Freelancers Day. The overall aim is to make the world sit up and recognise us for what we are and what we do. I urge you to go visit the website – it’s over here – and join the party. It’s important!