PCG, which represents the UK’s freelancers has declared Monday 23rd November 2009 National Freelancers Day in drive to encourage everyone to acknowledge all freelancers, consultantsand contractors and the contribution they make to the UK economy.  The Day has been launched as part of PCG’s tenth anniversary celebrations.

The new legislation that penalises managed service companies–companies that are run for contractors by providers–has sent a powerful message throughout the industry. There is real concern on the part of agencies and recruiters about the status of the contractors they work with. Are you running your own limited company, or is someone else running it for you? In the latter case, you may have trouble getting more work.

The Treasury have now produced their consultative document promised in the last budget on what they like to call ‘False Self Employment’ in the Construction Industry.

It is clearly an attempt to extract more money out of the industry. They have estimated that of the 860,000 self employed subcontractors in the UK 300,000 have been wrongly described as self employed and if these workers were re-classified as employees the Treasury would benefit to the sum of £350 million per year.

Since ‘A-day’ in 2006, the pension’s simplification rules have allowed Contractors to dramatically reduce their tax bills by contributing a large proportion of their income into a pension scheme. In fact, the only barrier to cap your contributions was the lifetime allowance of £1.75 million and the annual allowance of £245,000 (for 2009/10) and aside from this, it was left to the individual to decide how much to contribute from your annual income.