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It is coming up to the end of another tax year and crunch time for several thousands of self –employed people who may find themselves caught by a strange tax twist: IR35. Originally designed to prevent companies from offloading their full PAYE and NIC responsibilities, self employed people need to be careful how they manage the working relationship or HMRC may decide they are actually a ‘disguised employee’, regardless of the contractual arrangement.
PeoplePerHour offer a simple (and totally legal) work-around the IR35 trap for self employed people.
You are much less likely to be caught in the IR 35 trap if you work for several clients at a distance, so you can prove your independent contractor status. That is now much easier thanks to the arrival of the online skills marketplace run by PeoplePerHour.
The site allows you to quickly bid to complete short contracts: some as little as a few hours work. It takes up very little ‘sales’ time to increase your client numbers. Just register and post your information (free of charge), then bid for work. This is a big plus as many of the service providers now on PeoplePerHour.com say that prior to going onto the site, getting new clients was one of the hardest parts of going into business.
Businesses like HereTheProof(.co.uk) run by Gaynor Ridgeway use PeoplePerHour.com to offer their covert customer, proof reading and speech-writing services. When asked what’s the biggest business challenge, she says, “Establishing a new business client base. This is the most difficult thing of all.”
“I intend to keep using PeoplePerHour. It’s way ahead of its nearest competitor, and totally user-friendly.”
Most of the work offered through the site is ideal for meeting the independent contractor test. You are obviously using your own equipment to do the work from home and you are emphatically setting your own rates through the bidding system.
Because PeoplePerHour has a unique escrow system, payment is surprisingly fast for completed projects: in days rather than weeks. That makes it exceedingly handy all the year round to plug foreseeable cash-flow blips and save on the swingeing business banking charges that pile up the instant you are a penny overdrawn.
And if you dip into PeoplePerHour throughout the year to top up your funds, by this time next year, you’ll have lots of manifestly independent clients to chase away the spectre of IP35 from your business. You could even clock up a couple of projects this tax year if you’re quick.
For further info, contact: Penny Haywood at PHPR on 0131 669 5190 (day or evening) or email.
For further comment, interviews, or photos please contact Penny Haywood at PHPR on 0131 669 5190 (day or evening) or email.
PeoplePerHouse Background Information
• PeoplePerHour are already the UK leaders for the online skills market. To date over 1,200 projects posted by UK businesses on PeoplePerHour have been successfully completed by a selection of 3,700+ registered providers from the UK (49%), and (in decreasing order) from US, India, Argentina and Spain, enabling UK small businesses to tap into a global labour market.
• Founded in 2007 by two Cambridge graduates: Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris, PeoplePerHour are targeting an estimated £5 billion opportunity. That’s based on the Federation of Small Business (FSB) figures for 2006 showing the total annual spend on part-time, agency workers and casual labour in the UK across all businesses was £70 billion a year. 4.4 million small businesses in the UK are currently growing by 10% annually and account for 35% of the UK workforce, but only 44% of the small business workforce is in full-time employment.
• Buyers choose from an average of five bids per project posted and in many cases can access CV, photo, description, sample work and referee contact details.
• PeoplePerHour ensures providers get paid on completion through a combination of their unique escrow facility plus PayPal.
• The company has already attracted £350,000 of seed investment from prominent angel investors and is in discussions with a number of VCs.
• PeoplePerHour practises what it preaches. Their team consists of developers in India, designers in the US, a virtual assistant, PR agent and bookkeeper – all from the site.
• Busiest work categories are (in descending order): Web Development & Programming, Design, Admin Support, Writing (including Translations and Transcriptions), Marketing & PR, and Research.
• The typical buyer runs a small business (usually less than 20 people). No sectoral bias: companies seem to vary from boutique financial firms, Internet companies, property and PR agencies.
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penny[.]phpr.co.uk 
