This is interesting too - "An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, accomplished a successful landing on North Sentinel Island in January 1880. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. After several days, six Sentinelese were captured and taken to Port Blair. They soon became sick, and two of them died. The other four were returned to the island." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island
"Finally, after several days on the island, the party stumbled across an elderly couple who were too old to run away, and several small children. Portman brought the two adults and four of the children back to Port Blair. But the man and the woman soon started to get sick and then died, probably from exposure to Western diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza, to which they would have had little or no resistance. So Portman returned the four children to North Sentinel Island and released them with gifts for the rest of the tribe. The children disappeared into the jungle and were never seen again. "
I have been contracting for about 8 years now and yes, it is quite easy to get started in the UK. You can find your own contracts or most likely you'll need to send your CV to head-hunters looking for contractors. Once you get a contract, you've got two options: a) setup a limited company to invoice your client/agency. Many accountants in the market that can help you with that. e.g http://www.sjdaccountancy.com/ or b) go with an umbrella company e.g. http://www.tarpon-uk.com
Agree except for recommending SJD. They are a good accountancy firm but when I was with them they would only do my accounts through a really horrid excel spreadsheet. This time round I've gone with http://www.nimblejackaccounting.co.uk/ who bundle an account with freeagent (which is probably the best contractor accounting package out there) AND the set up of your limited company in their monthly fee.
If you're going to go contracting don't bother with an umbrella company! It's absolutely ridiculous how tax efficient you can be as a limited company (especially if you can set up you significant other as a director). You're looking at just under £40k per director completely free of personal tax and NI if you set it up right. You still have to pay corporation tax and some VAT on that amount and there's all the overhead of managing the company, but it's seriously worth it - especially with a good accountant!
Got to agree, umbrellas are a waste of money. Freeagent is really good (one or two small annoyances, but nothing that matters). They have a list of partner accountants who are freeagent friendly; I went for a local accountant who is a one person shop. A contracting friend of mine suggested local over chain. I met with the accountant and I'm really happy with her advice and charging structure; she help me organise starting the business reg for VAT, CORP tax and do some cashflow projections to minimise tax etc. I don't pay anything to her month to month but she is available to deal with any ad-hoc queries and will do the tax return at the end of the year. Freeagent allows my wife to do the bookkeeping, payroll and invoicing without the monthly involvement of an accountannt, then the accountant can get involved at the year end.
(The idea is that if the company bills 100,000 pounds
it pays corp tax of 20,000. Then the director can withdraw the profit of 80k as a dividend. Since a tax has already been paid on the 100k the 80k is free of income tax. However income tax is charged at two levels in the uk (25% and 40%). The govt says that the first level of 25% has already been paid (by corp tax at 20%). The 40% only kicks in at 43,000 a year - so you can as a director withdraw 43,000 as dividend and not pay "extra" tax on personal income.
The parent is suggesting your spouse can be a director and do the same, effectively making a 80k pa net household income on 100k revenue. (And if your are in a stable threesome it's even better :-)
If it is legal send me your accountants number - my mail is in the profile!
Perfectly legal! I get most of my tax info from taxcafe.co.uk. The best book they sell is called "using a company to save money".
By the way we met at one of the find a tech job meet ups recently. I'm interested in your OSS in government idea. How about you drop me a line next time you're in the city? I'm ben at perurbis.com (no website yet)
Agree about the umbrella company! Should be your last option! But something worth considering if you are not 100% sure about contracting and whether you want to do it for long term.
I'm with SJD and yes, they still do have that horrid excel spreadsheet!
Poor you... Seriously there's no competition in my mind: freeagent compared to that spreadsheet is like being fed ferrero rocher by Angelina Jolie at the ambassadors ball verses having faeces flung at you by drunk chimps at the zoo!
I'd like to highly recommend crunch.co.uk for UK contractors - they're a Brighton-based startup whose product is something like a cross between freeagent and a traditional accountant.
Disclaimer: They do also have an referral scheme, feel free to nudge me for my token if you're thinking of signing up (or don't, I'd still recommend them - referral voucher or not:)
I use Nixon Williams at the mo, who are more expensive but do seem to handle everything (i.e. tell me exactly what/when tax is due, things need to be signed etc etc)
To the people wondering whether the website is down: yes, Dan has sold the website: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3698539 (DomainPolish: From MVP To Exit In 6 Months)
Is this exit really a significant milestone? If I'm not wrong, he sold the site for $3,500 which really is not alot. That plus considering the fact that he probably got out at the right time considering the venture was not profitable for the new owner (a presumption based on the fact that the site is on longer online). Sales like these happen numerous times a day, usually theyre fly by night business ideas, spam adsense sites, or etc. Its nothing new, and posting stuff like this to hn does not make it any different, go to digitalpoint theres 15 year olds doing this stuff day in and out.
It's a very significant milestone. He created value for customers from a basic idea and managed to sell the entire thing to some other guy.
It's a great little story to get you funding. Ignore the 3.5k (which isn't horrible imo) the entire story is worth way more from a career building POV.
It's not your typical adsense pump and dump either this is miniature startup entrepreneurship. I'm not a VC guy but a story like this would get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling.
Sorry, I come off sounding as a cynic from the start. But I have liked the quality and content of Dan's previous posts, and this is not anything personal. With that said - Really? I could find you hundreds of others doing this same exact thing and I wouldn't find that as a reason to qualify them to get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling. I think I see this from a different viewpoint because from my years on hn it seems as most of the readers are blind to the other side of the startup world - the one where people focus on building products for 1) money or 2) flip. There's a whole ecosystem out there full of these small, medium, large, business that are bought and sold everyday.
The guy who bought it also had a few other projects going on at the same time. I wish I still had it because it was a reliable money-maker for me. Just needed attention that he couldn't give it - especially because he couldn't code it himself.
Why don't you buy it back? He gets to recoup part of his failed investment and you get your project back. Dedicate 3-7 days to implement what you've learned since that time and set up a passive income source. Would make a hell of a follow-up blog post too.
