Any site engineers/setting out engineers on here?
General Discussion: Shego's Employment/Work Thread!
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posted 26 Oct 2020 18:37, edited 26 Oct 2020 18:37
posted 27 Oct 2020 09:22, edited 27 Oct 2020 09:22
27 Oct 2020 09:30
27 Oct 2020 19:08
29 Oct 2020 11:51
I've been using Xero the past 4 years and it saves so much hassle. It's about £26pm but with that there is never a need to save receipts. Everything is linked to your business accounts: expenses, costs, invoices, bills due (tax etc.). It's relatively easy to use and has saved me loads of time. My accountant has access to it and thus can see what I owe and when. You just have to keep it updated by reconciling your costs / expenses / bills / invoices to the specific tax bracket.
I might be moving jobs to work for a Canadian company remotely. They do not have a legal EU entity yet and therefore are only able to take me on as a contractor. I had a few queries when it comes pay and taxation.
1) I have the option to be paid in $USD or £GBP. I'm going to choose $USD as while the £GBP is in the gutter, I have a feeling it's going to fall even further, perhaps even hit parity with the $USD come post Brexit/January 1st 2021. What accounts should I be looking at to have the money paid into? I notice some high street banks offer foreign currency accounts or am I better to use something like Transferwise?
2) Self assessment forms, are they easy to do or better to pay someone to do it for you, especially if the salary is in $USD?
3) Will I have to pay double income tax (Canada and UK), with having to claim the tax back at the end of the tax year?
TIA!
1) I have the option to be paid in $USD or £GBP. I'm going to choose $USD as while the £GBP is in the gutter, I have a feeling it's going to fall even further, perhaps even hit parity with the $USD come post Brexit/January 1st 2021. What accounts should I be looking at to have the money paid into? I notice some high street banks offer foreign currency accounts or am I better to use something like Transferwise?
2) Self assessment forms, are they easy to do or better to pay someone to do it for you, especially if the salary is in $USD?
3) Will I have to pay double income tax (Canada and UK), with having to claim the tax back at the end of the tax year?
TIA!
1) While you're probably correct about the exchange rate I have always opted to be paid in GBP wherever possible as all of my living costs are in GBP so the amount remains fixed and I know what I'm receiving in relation to what I'm spending. I think this is even more of a consideration when you're talking about a regular salary rather than project-based fees that I tend to work on. Sometimes you'll win and sometimes you'll lose but at least you know what's coming in. I use Transferwise for sending foreign payments and the exchange rates are always far better than anything I've seen from a High Street bank.
2) Self-assessment forms are easy enough to do. Very simplistically it's just a case of totting up your incomings and subtracting your allowable expenses to give a final taxable amount. Obviously the more sources of income you have (salary, shares, rental income, and so on) the more complicated it becomes. The benefit to paying someone to do it is they will know the way to structure everything for maximal efficiency.
3) The UK has a double taxation agreement with Canada so you should be ok. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/canada-tax-treaties I don't know how it works though in terms of whether you have to apply for anything or if it's automatic. But actually if you're living here, working here remotely and being paid into a UK bank account (i.e. not a Canadian one) then you won't be liable for income tax in Canada anyway.
2) Self-assessment forms are easy enough to do. Very simplistically it's just a case of totting up your incomings and subtracting your allowable expenses to give a final taxable amount. Obviously the more sources of income you have (salary, shares, rental income, and so on) the more complicated it becomes. The benefit to paying someone to do it is they will know the way to structure everything for maximal efficiency.
3) The UK has a double taxation agreement with Canada so you should be ok. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/canada-tax-treaties I don't know how it works though in terms of whether you have to apply for anything or if it's automatic. But actually if you're living here, working here remotely and being paid into a UK bank account (i.e. not a Canadian one) then you won't be liable for income tax in Canada anyway.
In terms of the third one, I believe it's the internationally based hiring company themselves who are hit by the tax implications. Whether they know this or not (depending on how experienced they are in recruiting overseas workers) there is rarely any waynof them getting around not paying a higher rate of tax, whatever the currency you are paid in.
Thank you both. Just signed the contract! Interestingly they are looking to utilise something like https://papayaglobal.com/ as they expand their global workforce, so hopefully it won't be too much of a headache in the long term.
Any recommendations for accounting software? The finance department in my current company uses Xero and they always bang on about it, is it decent for someone who's self employed? Think I'll go down the route of doing it all myself first and see how that goes 
I've been using Xero the past 4 years and it saves so much hassle. It's about £26pm but with that there is never a need to save receipts. Everything is linked to your business accounts: expenses, costs, invoices, bills due (tax etc.). It's relatively easy to use and has saved me loads of time. My accountant has access to it and thus can see what I owe and when. You just have to keep it updated by reconciling your costs / expenses / bills / invoices to the specific tax bracket.
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