The Gabem Umbrella Companies Blog:
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The end of the year is nigh and it's traditional to take a somewhat clichéd look back over the year's events, so that's exactly what I am going to do.

The new year brought with it the final installment of the April 2007 MSC legislation; Agencies were finally included in the transfer of debt legislation, which was only a problem if they were found to be in business with an MSC provider that wasn't deducting full Tax and NI. The end result was that we were asked by agencies to send out samples of our payslips to show that we were indeed making the required deductions. This wasn't really a chore, since our umbrella company had deducted and paid full PAYE and NI since April 2007.

Apart from constantly rising fuel prices the year stayed quiet until March, when our preparations for year end really started to kick off. That was immediately followed by April's budget, which brought with it the usual expectant waiting and pouring over documents. The biggest news to come out of that was the abolition of the 10% tax bracket and the resulting refund which we were happy to put through for you in September.

Fuel prices started to level out in May, but were already over 110p per litre. In June I started this blog, with the first actual topic being UCATT calling for an end to CIS. June also saw the first of Susan's Legal Bits, this one about The Agency Workers Directive. Even after 6 months nobody's really any clearer on what the legal standpoint is on a lot of items within it (Susan has just made it clear to me that she is keeping on top of the AWD for us, and as soon as she has firmer information she will let us know).

The month of July brought a peak to the fuel prices just falling short of an average 120p per litre for unleaded. After that they started to come down and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We introduced the Construction Industry Holiday Scheme which boosted and continues to boost the holiday pay that construction workers receive.

Things were quiet until September when we announced the start of our self employed options, and all of a sudden things got busy again, Susan wrote about TUPE and how it would affect things (essentially not at all), and I spoke about the Governments Consultation on "Tax relief for travel expenses: temporary workers and overarching contracts" that was ultimately put to one side as the economy collapsed around us.

In October we started our new services, Solo and CIS. The site got a much needed revamp and it was a busy month all round.

November was a welcome quiet patch for news after October's business, I posted some useful bits and pieces on Employment status, and Susan opted to answered your questions rather than cover a specific topic.

All of which brings us to December, and the Pre-budget report which only really held good news. The main one as far we were concerned was that the threat posed by the consultation on "Tax relief for travel expenses: temporary workers and overarching contracts" has not materialised, although HMRC have said that they may revisit it in the future. In addition HMRC declared it's intention to investigate and litigate with those providers not operating in a compliant manner in the near future.

All of which brings us up to date.

To all of you that visit the site and read blog, whether you are a contractor, consultant or competitor, I would like to say thank you for helping to make the site a success. On behalf of Gabem I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year and a great night tonight.

Hugo
31/12/2008