Snowdon International specializes in contract management and administration to the highest standards. Once you have a contract to go to, you will invariably need a corporation in the chain between the end-client and yourself. That is our role as a contract management company, providing not just the specifics of the contract, but also providing your requirements whilst working.
Snowdon International Inc is firstly an administration service for freelance Consultants. We deal with agents and end-clients but we do not have the timing difference between invoice payments. In short, we always receive money that is due before paying out, therefore we are never in a negative cashflow and we never have to manage bank overdrafts. Accordingly there is no possibility of bankruptcy due to financial mis-management. Snowdon International Inc has been in operation since 2007.
Contracting as a freelance consultant is very different to being an employee. Self-employed people do not get statutory sick pay, paid holidays or redundancy. For those reasons, the contract rate is much higher than a salary for the same job however, you need to think in terms of covering the sick days, holidays and redundancy from your earned income yourself. Not all the invoiced income is for immediate disposal, you need to implement measures to save a proportion of your income as "plan B' defense against unseen eventualities. Having a financial contingency plan is a must if you are to ensure your continuing ability to function as a freelance consultant and shield yourself and your family from hardship in the event of problems with obtaining payment of your invoice for whatever reason.
In order to be a freelance consultant, and to shield both the agent and end-client from either being seen as your employer, you need to either have your own limited company or be represented by one. More and more countries are inserting personal services legislation into their domestic laws, like IR35 in the UK. Company law recognises the limited company as a "person", a separate legal entity just like an individual, thus a company exists in its own right and can hold contracts, employ staff, open a bank account, and pay tax. However, having a UK limited company and working in UK or anywhere in the EU is fraught with tax implications, like IR35 and cross-border VAT etc. The alternative for freelance consultants is to use an umbrella service instead of incorporating your own limited company. You pay a fee for the administration of your contract, invoicing etc so you only have timesheets to worry about. Using an umbrella service in the UK does not safeguard either you or the umbrella company from IR35, this personal services law sees through corporate veils, also partnerships etc.
Some of you no longer live in the UK and therefore, provided that you can demonstrate that you own or maintain a home abroad, you can obtain a tax code of NT. You may still have to submit Self Assessment tax returns annually but this can be done online now. We have assisted many clients with this in the past. Not available to US citizens.
You should all know that you are saving a lot of tax and/or other costs with every invoice, you should all also know that there are inherent risks. Implement a contingency plan even if it is only a separate savings account. Too many of the Consultants that we know are working as freelance but treating their payments as a salary. Now that you are freelance, you have to adapt to the insecurity and irregularity of the business world. Also, don't lose sight of the political agendas of the various countries, especially in the EU because the net is tightening. You are collectively some of the highest earners amongst the working public and consequently the biggest target for tax dollars.
Not all of you are British, or even EU, nationals but the question of paying tax in the EU does feature. Basically, if you're working for more than 6 months in any one tax year [dates vary according to country], then you may be tax resident in that country and the onus is usually on you the tax payer to make a declaration of what your taxable earnings are. Most countries observe gross self employed income less business expenses as being the taxable income. Naturally, payments to you, arising from invoices prepared by Snowdon International Inc on your behalf, include living away allowances and / or travel expenses. This is always noted as a reference on bank transfers to your respective bank accounts. Some of you require that the expenses part be paid into a separate bank account - not a problem for us. This enables you to keep track of your expenses, conveniently having the reimbursements paid into the same account e.g. where your credit card payments come from. Therefore your "travel" account has everything grouped together and none of it is taxable as it relates to travel and other allowable expenses, e.g. accommodation, subsistence or professional subscriptions. The travel account can be anywhere, Luxembourg and Switzerland are still relatively good within the EU but keep in mind that the Savings Tax Directive may affect your savings - check with your bank to see what their policy is. As for the earned income, you may want to receive that into a local bank account for ease, where you live and/or work. This will likely be the account from which you take bank statements in preparing your business taxable income statement.
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