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27th January 2009, 01:27 PM
they will be the new Taxbreak biscuit, a hard chocolate coating around an inedible bitter and harder centre.
Would you prefer peanuts?
?When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.?
William Blake
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27th January 2009, 01:50 PM
Monty, I think Bob is referring to charge-out rates rather than pay rates. Typically you need to charge out twice what you want to earn as take-home in order to pay for all those annoying things like NI, tax, insurance, overheads as Bob mentions. If anything I would have thought ?140 a day is a bit on the low side for London.
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27th January 2009, 02:02 PM
They sound familiar.......i'll take the peanuts (also familiar)...........ahh charge out rates....a completely different kettle of fish........[8D]
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28th January 2009, 11:19 AM
Erm, no its not a different thing! Charge out rate/day rate is exactly the same thing, its what I charge my clients, or what you get paid by eg Time Team as a self-employed person. Over a year this forms your turnover, out of which you can pay your costs including tax and NI, and then what is left is yours. So ?70 a day is less than what you are earning as an employee. It is exploitation and Time Team should be ashamed. A lot of confusion happens when people say 'I earn ?250 a week', when in reality they earn ?340 GROSS. Its not the same.
As an employee your employer charges you out on a day rate to clients, then uses the difference between your pay and the day rate to pay the rent/loans/admin staff/tools/make any profit/invest in training etc etc.
?140 a day is about the right day rate for a basic digger in London, but for a supervisor its a fair bit more. I charge a lot more, and in normal times people are happy to pay because they get quality work.
Although on paper it looks very attractive self-employed is only suitable for some, and I wouldn't recommend it, its certainly not the way forward for archaeology in terms of sorting out our many problems. It suits me, just about, as I get to spend a lot of time with my family. But yes, I'd rather have a nice steady job at the minute!
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28th January 2009, 03:46 PM
still a little confused here ..... my gross is 65 per day..........and how much does the 140 a day digger actually get paid gross ????
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28th January 2009, 08:10 PM
Your unit will be charging clients about ?130 a day for your services then I reckon. I can't remember gross digger wages for London, but its a bit more, not a lot though. As Paul Belford says, the gross pay is normally about 50% of the day rate. The other 50% goes on their tax, NI, pension, loans, rent, tools, utilities, vehicles and of course non-project staff etc etc etc. It costs a lot to run a business, whether as a sole trader, or as a big unit.
I agree at first glance it could seem like a rip off, but units don't actually make a huge profit on the day rate, and as we all know, keeping core staff going when there is no work is expensive, so they have to build up contingencies when they can.
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28th January 2009, 08:22 PM
Of course your ?65 sounds less than TT's ?70. But whilst you pay income tax on both, you pay all your NI as self-employed, as an employee you get paid for 8 bank holidays, 20 odd days annual leave, get sick pay (hopefully!), tools and equipment provided, and don't have to go out and win jobs, or do any admin/tax stuff. You also have to pay all your pension subs etc as self employed, plus insurance, accommodation, travel, vehicle, (if you can't put them as expenses). And of course if you don't work every day you don't get paid. So that ?70 a day gross shrinks pretty quickly to a lot lot less.
I imagine what TT did to work out their wages was just take a digger's gross wage and convert to a day rate.
