Why are self-employed treated so badly?

Gloomtastic!

No stamps, no pension rights, same taxes, no training..... why?

Joseph

They have the potential to make an unlimited amount of money?

J_Wholesale

Deaddude wrote: »

They have the potential to make an unlimited amount of money?

A window cleaner, a child minder, or a plumber has the potential to make an unlimited amount of money? You might as well say that a bank cashier has the potential to become head of AIB, which while not untrue, is still about as likely as winning the lottery.

This country doesn't value its entrepreneurs and small business owners. Which was fine when all the high paying jobs were coming from multi nationals. Not to fine when we need those small businesses to hire people now that the multi nationals have all jumped ship.

Like the OP says, I have no stamps, no pension rights, no safety net, yet pay the same taxes. And because of that I begrudge every Euro of it I have to pay.

antoinolachtnai

I think you will find that unless you are over a certain income, you actually pay more taxes (no PAYE exemption, PRSI is higher at low incomes).

I think there is a childminding exemption up to some limit.

knighted_1

make a 100 k and you will give the tax man a least 40 k as a sole trader and thats after you have colected a bucket load of vat on thier behalf -

no incentive for anybody to earn the big dollars and create wealth -it seems that this country hates ordinary people trying to become millionaires

if they tried a scheme whereby they told people to earn a minimum of 120k and you would only have to pay 20% on everything ,the country would be out of recession in 12 months and the tax reciepts would be up

Owen

In the eyes of the bank, you might as well be selling the big issue. Being self employed here is like being some sort of unclean thing when it comes to the basics, trying to get loans, trying to get a mortgage, even friends of mine who are self employed had difficulty signing up for a phone!

Joseph

J_Wholesale wrote: »

A window cleaner, a child minder, or a plumber has the potential to make an unlimited amount of money? You might as well say that a bank cashier has the potential to become head of AIB, which while not untrue, is still about as likely as winning the lottery.

This country doesn't value its entrepreneurs and small business owners. Which was fine when all the high paying jobs were coming from multi nationals. Not to fine when we need those small businesses to hire people now that the multi nationals have all jumped ship.

Like the OP says, I have no stamps, no pension rights, no safety net, yet pay the same taxes. And because of that I begrudge every Euro of it I have to pay.

I know you asked that question sarcastically but yes, yes of course they do. They have the opportunity to go on, expand their business, take risks, employ more people, expand etc.

I think (generally) people don't have enough ambition here in Ireland, they are happy to make ends meet and don't push themselves enough

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

It could be worse, you could be a company director. Then the gov can give you the ultimate kick in the teeth. For taking the initiative to start a business and maybe take a few people from the dole queue, they charge you double the amount of tax in the first year that other companies get charged.

Now there's talking the talk and walking the... other direction.

DoMyBooks

The government have made 'some' attempts are rectifying this.
-Theres a 3 year tax exemption for start up companies.
-Back to work enterprise allowance to allow unemployed to dip their toes in being self employed without loosing entitlements.
-The skillnets provided subsidiesed training. The city and county enterprise boards are 'supposed' to help.

The biggest problem as I see it is confusion and focusing in the wrong areas. There's a vast amount of agencies supposed to be helping entrepreneurs get started but they don't communicate well.

Have a look at this website http://www.galwayenterprise.ie/en/index.html

Its a mess, they don't bother publishing their training courses and there's dead links. The latest accounts I can see for GCCEB are 2008 they show grants received of €986,050 which is a substantial amount of funding.

We need one single national organisation responsible for promoting entrepreneurship and innovation with one excellent website and call centre providing information rather than the 100 odd we presently have.

There also needs to be some sort of safety net in that if your business fails you can have similar entitlements to if you were PAYE

wellboy76

Biffo needs the money to pay for drinks at the bar!