Electric Trainer

Wavering freelancer? Vote remain.

I meet a lot of production freelancers in my training, working in TV, film and theatre. Where the EU vote has come up it seems most are natural remainers, as indeed am I.

If you're still wavering, here are a few reasons why you should vote remain.

1. Freelance finances are pretty precarious, especially when you start out. You need stability and confidence in the economy. I know from personal experience that worries about financial shocks to the UK stops clients spending (e.g. 2010 when the coalition came in). We could have a very long period of instability if we vote Brexit. Don't just take my word for it.
2. You can go where the work is, and that includes the whole of Europe. I regularly meet freelancers who work in another European country too. They can travel to find work (almost the definition of freelancing) and it's fun. Why would you shut off that opportunity?
3. Your skills training is often supported by EU money. The EU Social Fund and Regional Development Fund push money into areas where skills need to be developed. I've run courses for production people in London and Glasgow which have been part funded with EU money.
4. You'll find EU money in some swish production facilities around the country, because the EU cares about cultural development. One example is The Space Project in Manchester. 
5. If you don't believe me, listen to your colleagues. Most in the production industry recognise the value of being a great exporter of TV, as reported in Broadcast magazine. The production union BECTU is keen for us to vote remain too.
6. Holiday pay. That's an EU thing.

You know production is all about teamwork. So is working with your neighbours to make the world a better place. Don't let them down.

 

5 top time management tips for busy parents

I had the joyous experience of taking part in the Mum to Millionaire podcast on Friday. Veena V is a great host, and there are loads of good tips on her site for setting up on your own - and not just for busy parents juggling the kids.

Check out the blogs here:

• Mum to Millionaire 

And don't forget to listen to our chat about my top time management tips:

 

Getting your life back

We had a great discussion in yesterday's 'Setting up as a Sole Trader' workshop about time management: when to be 'on duty' for your business; how to switch off without feeling guilty about work; how to concentrate on work without feeling guilty about all the housework, etc....

Then I read this article about a new phone, raising the same issues in a different context. As someone who has two phones - one for work and one for when I'm not working - I agreed with some of the suggestions. For example, I don't take my work phone on holiday because...er...I don't work when I'm on holiday.

What do you think? If you're freelance, running yourself as a small business, how do you decide when to be contactable and when to switch off? Are you using technology to help you do this?

Media coverage of sustainable development

It's a big year for sustainable development, with some important international summits - at the UN next week and in Paris in December. This means development issues will be finding their way into the mass media where they usually don't get much of a look-in.

This presents a challenge for writers and journalists who may not normally cover these areas. It's also a great opportunity for charities and non-governmental organisations, who work tirelessly on improving the lots of people all around the world but whose work often goes unnoticed.

The big effort this year is on agreeing international "sustainable development goals" (SDGs), which will focus the efforts in every country to make the world a fairer, more equal and better  place.

David Thomas Media has been working with Stakeholder Forum and Civicus (based in South Africa) to produce guides that help journalists on the one hand and charities on the other. Greater understanding on both parts will help more accurate and more engaging reporting. And who could argue with that.

If you're a journalist and are scratching your head about all this, I would recommend these resources:

• A Journalist's Toolkit (PDF, from Civicus)
• Sustainable development goals: all you need to know (excellent summary from the Guardian)

If you're in a development charity or NGO, we've created a guide, site and audio podcasts to help you engage with the media:

• Engaging with the Media - online guide and podcasts

It's also worth reading this great advice from Will Tucker, also for the Guardian:

• How to communicate sustainable development goals

 Now let's hope that these issues get much wider and more accurate coverage.

 

Self-employment and personal service companies

I get a lot of questions on my self-employment training courses about the mysterious personal service company (PSC). Most people have heard the term in connection with working for yourself, but are confused about what it means. As I mostly work with people going freelance it's a very relevant issue.

This update from the CIPD provides a nice overview. The legislation around PSCs (IR35) is so opaque that there are constant rumours that it will be changed/clarified/abolished. Now the Office of Tax Simplification are trying to make things, er... simpler. They might also put the onus on the work provider (client or employer) to define whether the job is legitimately one that can be paid gross, or whether the worker has to be paid PAYE through the payroll.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2015/09/04/employers-may-have-to-decide-tax-status-of-personal-service-company-workers.aspx

Sustainable Development and the Media

One of my more interesting projects over the last 18 months has been developing two new guides to help development charities and media people understand each other better. 

Laudable and worthy though that may sound in general, this year it has a particular importance.

Development will be big news later this year when the UN agrees to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the planet in September, and big climate change talks happen in Paris in December. These could be really significant events.

In the next few weeks we're launching a website with information, advice and podcasts for charities on how to engage with the media, how to understand journalists, and how to clarify what on earth they are trying to say to a wider audience. More on that very soon.

Already available is a handy 'Journalist's Toolkit', which you can download as a PDF thanks to Stakeholder Forum and Civicus, our clients for all this. http://ow.ly/L75kP

It's aimed at bloggers, journalists and journalism trainers, and covers all the main topics surrounding development and poverty alleviation on our planet - water, climate, educating more women, battling corruption...you name it. We also relate each topic to the new UN goals.

So if you find sustainable development confusing, or you think journalists come from another planet, one of these guides will be just the ticket.

Self-employed national insurance - more changes

The days following a budget announcement are always interesting to me. As the headlines fade it's possible to delve into the small print and find quite substantial changes that no one seems to have noticed.

The one that's caught my eye this year is the proposed change to national insurance (NI) for sole traders. In fact there are two changes coming up, one of which is definitely happening, and another which might not, but which has significant knock-ons.

Firstly, as I've written before, from April 2015 sole traders will no longer have to pay Class 2 NI separately. It will be accounted for (and paid for) through the tax return system. The bill will come at end of the year, so no monthly direct debits or six monthly cheques are required from April. The rate of Class 2 NI from April 2015 is calculated at £2.80 per week, and you can read more on gov.uk.

So far so sensible.

The second proposal, announced yesterday, is to "abolish class 2 NI". Now, we've been here before with the word "abolish". (See Gordon Brown's budget in 2007.)  It seems like a good idea to abolish a tax. But national insurance is a kind of tax which brings benefits. So if you abolish a whole class of NI there is a danger you might abolish the benefits for the people who used to pay it.

At the moment Class 2 NI makes you eligible for state pension, ESA, maternity allowance and bereavement benefits. No one's suggesting that self employed people shouldn't get any of those. But how will the Department of Work and Pensions know you're eligible if Class 2 doesn't exist?

One suggestion is that Class 4 NI (already paid by sole traders through the tax return system) will be part of the eligibility test. The problem with that is that Class 4 is only paid if your profits are high enough. What about sole traders with low profits? 

Or are they saying that sole traders should be eligible for these benefits from the point of registration, even when no financial contribution to NI is made?

Watch this space. And do bear in mind that this might be kicked into touch if the Tories don't get in in May.

If you're interested you can read more on this from a proper accountant here.

Connected to this is the proposal to "abolish" the tax return, which has been generally well received. At some point it will be possible for you to enter all your income and expense information on a digital portal of some sort, and pay your tax as you go along. 

The date being talked about is 2020, but a version of this is going to start as soon as 2016 for some small businesses.

Plenty to keep an eye on in the coming years.

How to work out your price

New freelancers and sole traders often ask me how much they should charge. The short answer is to look at the existing market and see what people like you are normally paid.

On a similar topic I came across this episode of the BBC's Bottom Line programme. It looks at how certain businesses charge for their time in different ways. Evan Davis talks to an online estate agent, a lawyer and someone from a big advertising agency.

It's a fun listen, and here are a couple of ways of getting to it:

• BBC Bottom Line programme page
• Download the episode via iTunes (mp3)

 

Getting tax back

I meet quite a few people on business skills courses who have been through a redundancy process and are receiving a payout as a result. 

Redundancy payments greater than £30,000 are taxed at source, so I'm often asked how you get the tax back if you've been taxed too much for that financial year.

I'm no tax advisor, but this link might help:
www.gov.uk/claim-tax-refund/youve-stopped-work

It's part of the new-look GOV.UK site, where HMRC has been migrating lots of useful guidance.

A few years ago I also ranted slightly about a related issue.

New VAT rules for e-selling in the EU

OK. So e-selling isn't really a word, but if you're selling digital stuff online to EU customers you need to be aware of some new rules. *Takes deep breath...*

Small businesses are being warned about new VAT changes from 1st Jan 2015, which mean sellers of apps, downloads and other e-services to customers in other EU countries will have to charge VAT at the rate within the customer's countries, not the UK rate.

The potential for confusion is enormous (giving rise to the hashtag #VATMESS), as VAT will have to be charged on EVERY sale, even where a UK business doesn't have to be VAT registered within the UK. This is likely to be a challenge for entrepreneurial sole traders in particular.

The VAT 'mini one stop shop' is supposed to help, avoiding the need to become VAT registered in every European country (!).  But you'll still need a UK VAT registration number to use the one stop shop, even if you are below the UK VAT threshold.

It all seems very bureaucratic, but you can read more via these useful links, presuming you haven't lost the will to live:

• gov.uk - Explanation of the new rules
• gov.uk - Some extra guidance
• Registering for VAT Mini One Stop Shop (MOSS)

Fair play to the Daily Telegraph, which has pointed to the challenges for small online businesses, and especially people who work for themselves but sell all around Europe using the internet. You'd have thought the tax people would want to make this simple and straight forward. 

You can read the Telegraph's take on the latest twists here.