You mean like the Swisspeople buying a home next to an airfield and later voting that the traffic pattern has to stay away from their home?
Sorry for the diversion, could not help it
LOL. Yes. Pretty much.
I used to live in Opfikon very close to the departure path of runway 16 at ZRH. Close enough incidentally that I managed to spot our cat from a MD11 departing… well I loved living there, sitting on my balcony and watching the big ones go by.
Most people thought I am nuts of course.
Malibuflyer wrote:
I don’t think so. It is just to point out that there are different people with different preferences and requirements. I know many pilots who actually like the “civil servant” type of employment they have at Lufthansa. But I also know many that are actually happy that they are self employed (some for tax reasons, some because they run other jobs in parallel, some because they just like perceived freedom, …).
I don’t disagree with that. I’m self employed myself and the vast majority of my clients are self employed/business owners. So I have some understanding of the mindset. I just don’t think it’s fair to brand someone lazy, because they don’t like getting pushed into self employment when they don’t get the benefits of that self employment but have all the responsibilities of it.
Peter wrote:
Traditionally, the individual has his own Ltd Co which is a contractor to the Ltd Co which provides the service to the “employer”.[…] There are many tax perks e.g. your wife (who let’s say is home with kids and her tax allowances are thus wasted) can draw a salary from the company for “admin services”.
The trouble here, in my view, is that that’s not what is happening here. If that was what was happening, then I’d agree with you.
You stated on the previous page that you’d set up two businesses in the past.
Imagine for a moment that in one of those businesses, your first customer came to you and offered you the following contract:
1. You work for me, and only me. You don’t accept work from anyone else.
2. You don’t refuse any work that I send you.
3. I won’t guarantee you any work.
4. You pay for your own training to use my equipment, and it costs €30K. You pay it to me and I organise the training.
5. You work where I tell you and when I decide I want you to work in another country, you move there.
6. You must form your own company and you’ll be an employee of that company.
7. That company will contract your time to another company that is nothing to do with me.
8. I’ll contract your time from from that other company, who in turn will contract it from your company, who in turn will pay you.
9. Oh, and “your” company won’t be just your company. You’ll have to share it with 3 to 20 other pilots.
10. You can use any accountancy firm you like, provided it’s one of the 4 or 5 that I’ve approved. (We’re not taking KPMG, PWC etc, but some niche firms that I’ve approved and who’s loyalty is to me).
11. Your accountants will also be directors of “your” company and will handle all the bookwork for you, and sign off the annual accounts.
12. You’ll never see your annual accounts because they contain private details of salary and expense of the other 3-20 pilots.
13. You’ll never see the bank statements of “your” company and you won’t be a signatory on that account. Only your accountants (which I’ve approved) will see them.
14. You can’t leave money in that company because it’s shared with all the other pilots in it. So no opportunity to reduce your salary and build up funds for later tax planning.
15. If one of the other pilot’s has a tax inspection, then all of you have a tax inspection.
16. If there is a settlement (and there has been) then your company is liable, which has implications for each of you. Each pilot should pay the amount related to them, but if one of them can’t well, it’s your company that owes the money.
17. You are fully responsible for the tax returns of “Your” company, even though you’ll never see the transactions going through it.
18. If I deem that I want it, you might have to chance your company to a different company.
19. There is no room for long term tax planning.
20. You pay the accounting, and administration costs.
21. If I decide I don’t need your services anymore, then I just won’t ask the intermediary to send you.
22. If the intermediary doesn’t want to use you anymore, then they just won’t contract your company. You’ll still be an employee of your company, but that’s your issue.
Would you be happy with that contract? Would you see it as a wonderful opportunity to boost your earnings as a smart business owner? Would you accept it? What if this was the only type of contract that was realistically available to you in your proposed industry?
Or would you see it as an employer attempting to extract every advantage for themselves while passing on all the responsibilities (with none of the advantages) to you.
This is essentially the position the pilots are faced with. It’s take it or leave it.
They all take it, and their only hope is to hang around long enough to eventually be taken onto the RyanAir payroll.
If it was a normal self employment, I’d agree with you. But this is not a normal self employment. There is no scope to do proper tax planning nor to increase your earnings. All you can do is join the line and hope that you get promoted later, which presumably means not rocking the boat.
Young people who want to be pilots and are told by Lufthansa that they do not get a slot in their training program
Lufthansa closed this (Bremen) by the way….hundreds of unemployed now (CEO = kill all the good jobs).
@Dublinpilot
Thanks again. Fully agree! RYR is winning by playing foul. Sure, from a shareholder perspective it looks good, but too discard all other perspectives is pathetic.
@mooney_driver has it right… flight training industry is completely crooked. Imagine the same would happen with future medical doctors… pay to be a surgeon… great (by the way, I wanted to become a doctor, but I didn’t have the patience, haha).
Would you be happy with that contract? Would you see it as a wonderful opportunity to boost your earnings as a smart business owner? Would you accept it? What if this was the only type of contract that was realistically available to you in your proposed industry?
Or would you see it as an employer attempting to extract every advantage for themselves while passing on all the responsibilities (with none of the advantages) to you.
This is essentially the position the pilots are faced with. It’s take it or leave it.
Pretty precise description.
Peter wrote:
Traditionally, the individual has his own Ltd Co which is a contractor to the Ltd Co which provides the service to the “employer”.
In that case, he would have to be a regular employee of the service provider Ltd., because he is only ever working for this one company. It really doesn’t change how many Ltd.’s you chain behind each other in this scenario.
Rwy20 wrote:
In that case, he would have to be a regular employee of the service provider Ltd., because he is only ever working for this one company.
True, or at least that is well advised to do it that way, but as an employee of your own company you only need to be paid minimum wage, or probably wise to do it that way.
Great post @dublinpilot – sums it up perfectly.
Rwy20 wrote:
It really doesn’t change how many Ltd.’s you chain behind each other in this scenario.
What it does do is insulate Ryanair from any adverse taxation/legal ruling. If the pilot falls foul of the regs and is deemed an employee, he is deemed an employee of of either his own Ltd Co or the intermediary. Not of Ryanair.
In the UK, that would not work for taxation.
If HMRC decides that a contractor is really an employee, the employer is deemed to have been deducting PAYE (income tax etc) for all the assessed years, and has to hand it over to HMRC.
The contractor (now employee) keeps his gains 
Yes, but what Graham rightly said is that now the service company Ltd. would be the employer, and the one which owed the PAYE, and not Ryanair. The intermediate company can just declare bankruptcy in such a case I suppose.
