BBC pays staff through Personal Service Companies

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This is back in the headlines with a lot of the BBC "stars" - claiming they were forced by the BBC to work this way - of course they are all fully entitled to pay the full amount to themselves as salary from their PSC and therefore the net tax/NI loss to the revenue is minimal (there would be some costs to running the PSC but not more than £1K or so pa).

What they are not saying of course is if they have or have they taken advantage of the opportunity to minimise their tax?

I wonder....

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the point I was trying to make is that the "stars" seem to be quite happy to point the finger at the BBC for this and completely ignore the fact that they have (potentially) made a lot of money out of the situation - in other words I doubt they protested too much

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sugerbear said:

RedLeicester said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

The real point here is very simple,

• People at the bottom of our society avoid tax by working for cash etc.
• People at the top of our society avoid tax by the use of service companies.
• The mugs in the middle get nailed for full NI and PAYE.

So a freelance cameraman who might work for the BBC, and a variety of other production houses over the course of a year and earn maybe £20k per annum is oh-so wicked for operating as a company? Oh the shame on them.

Same as whining about "super-rich" movie stars or pop acts, such sweeping statements are utter nonsense and do nothing more than deflect from the truth and inflame the hyperbole.

Rubbish example if the freelancer can pick and choose their job and is only employed for short periods of time at each company.

A better example would be a senior manager who rather than being employed on a permanent basis sets up his own company and then is paid directly to the company. They can then avoid ni contributions by paying themselves a dividend, employ their wife as company secretary and use her tax allowance and offset expenses against their tax bill. They are essentially contracted to a single company for a long period of time on a rolling contract.

I don't know why certain sections of society think that it's perfectly acceptable to evade tax either through doing work cash in hand or muddying the waters between what is a self employed and permanent. Oh wait I do know. Greed.

at the risk of getting back on topic - I deliberately used the word stars in my OP, the debate over usage of PSCs has been done before, what is different this time is that the stars are saying the BBC forced them to do it - but are not being clear if they have made full use of the tax benefits or "done the right thing" and maximised the tax they pay through the PSC.