Tim Jackson

Rossendale Lancs.

Engineer

The concept that employers should protect workers from the vagaries of the real world is as obscene as the insurance industry. It gives rise to a distorted image of reality and to behaviour designed to exploit others rather than to create wealth.

Small businesses have been dealing with the tax man on a reasonably friendly basis for just about ever, keeping accounts is not rocket science, just ask your local plumber or greengrocer how it's done. Mostly they use computers, but I suppose that is beneath most IT people. :(

I speak as one who moved in the 1980s from an office IT job to self employment, working from home and selling myself by the hour. Yes I have an "umbrella company", but that is largely historical, it isn't much advantage these days.

I don't enjoy the fact that my customers want to dump all the risk in a project on me, but that's life (after all employees dump all the risk on the employer in the same way) and I price my services accordingly. It means if I do my job efficiently and my costings accurately I make more profit, which encourages me to make the effort.