Does CIS apply to sole traders doing occasional work together?

[Smugley]

Hi all, any of you out there working self-employed care to comment on this? I've been doing occasional work with a plumber. He takes on bathroom renovations and gets me in for a few days for the electrical bits. Up until now I have invoiced the homeowner directly, so in effect the only business arrangement between me and the plumber is that he recommended my services to the client, after which my contract is between the homeowner and myself, the homeowner not being regarded as a contractor under the scheme.

However he was asking me to invoice him for my hours and materials and he will just give the client one invoice. He is also self-employed. I believe this means that we will both need to register with the Construction Industry Scheme - he as contractor and me as subcontractor. He doesn't know anything about this - said he thought it only applied if your business income was over a certain amount.

In a similar thread on here recently someone stated that the CIS did not apply if the work was only occasional. I would only do maybe one job with him every month or two. Is that true? I couldn't see this anywhere in the CIS information booklet.

Cheers

 

[Octopus]

I'll be interested in the comments on this but as far as I'm concerned the CIS scheme needs to be scrapped as it adds unnecessary overheads to hard pressed, hard working, small businesses.

 

[hasel5]

Officially yes you should but if you don't tell them they won't find out

As murduch says it's a lot of unnecessary paperwork

 

[Octopus]

The way I look at it is simple. I invoice the customer,that being plumber or end customer, and declare the income as part of my income for the year. Nothing is hidden, and the paperwork is done "year end". Couldn't be simpler.

 

[hasel5]

The way I look at it is simple. I invoice the customer,that being plumber or end customer, and declare the income as part of my income for the year. Nothing is hidden, and the paperwork is done "year end". Couldn't be simpler.

Exactly Murdoch one set of books with all earnings devlared

 

[Octopus]

An interesting lack of input to this thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:6:

 

[ExArmy]

as long as you pay tax at the end of the year, it doesn't really matter.
if someone gave me the choice i'd just opt out of CIS and pay my tax at the end of the year myself. it ****es me off that i have to pay tax when i don't have to, and then apply at the end of the year to get it back!

 

[Smugley]

Thank you all for your comments. I think the conclusion is that the scheme does apply to small businesses/self employed no matter what the yearly income. Pain in the backside really. Therefore so long as we submit our invoices separately to our clients we can happily avoid getting involved.