[Sir Squeaky]

Whatever you may think to the contrary, the prices I'm charging are not rip off prices, were you doing them off a ladder (by that I mean you personally) you would almost certainly want a similar amount for the jobs.

I would never ask for over 200 quid for two hours work Ian, more like £45-50.
So yes, that's a massive rip-off.

[Bob McKillop]

Ian, is that £200  just on your own?

[windows_chepstow]

Ian, is that £200  just on your own?

I can answer for Ian here.  Yes, it's by himself.

The job he's talking about (I think) is a big three story office block with large sash type windows.

I've seen Ian doing these trad a few years ago and it involves climbing off a big old ladder and standing on the sills - three stories up.

WFP rips through this job, since there's no climbing up or down with a ladder move for every window.

[Sir Squeaky]

He's trebled the price then.
It used to be £70 for 2 and a half hours trad.(when I was slow)

[windows_chepstow]

He's trebled the price then.
It used to be £70 for 2 and a half hours trad.(when I was slow)

I may have got the wrong building.

[Roy Harding]

I set my target last new year to increase the amount of work on my books by £20'000 to be achieved by last working day this year so far I have achieved an extra £15'000 with no advertising or marketing or doorknocking or leaflets , I have not even got a sign written van.

How did i achieve this you may ask.

If a promise of a job comes up then i would of achieved my goal, I have been told the job is mine but i need confirmation before christmas for it to count

Dave

p.s Squeeky I am no Liar

My motto is live your life with 100% integrety and you will go far, If you are prepared to tell small lies where do the big lies come in.

Well done Dave your spot on.

With George you can project you income for future years, my projection shows a 40% increase on this year.

I can cope with it but only if I work till 4.00pm and not 2:30pm there becomes a point that one man can only do so much.

But declare all, if you want a mortgage loan you need the figures to get it.

Roy

[billozz]

Rog,


I have a day tomorrow for instance, where by the time you have been to Mike's and bought your paper I'll have knocked out £206  (6am start and you get your paper at about 8am)
...

can you clean windows in the dark?

[windows_chepstow]

Good on you guys if you're 100% honest with your tax return; no sarcasm implied or inferred.

I also understand the moral issues concerning tax evasion, but there's a big disparity to how the tax system works, and how this money is often wasted.

Do you know the Queen is something like the hundred-and-thirty-something richest woman in the UK, yet she's only paid taxes for the past twenty years; not a penny before that; and that only came about because she AGREED she should pay tax.

I wish I could've gotten away without paying a single penny in taxes for as long as she has.

Oh, and what about ole 'Big Ears'?



From the news:

LONDON - PRINCE Charles faces new scrutiny over his accounts as MPs demand to know why his main income benefited from tax exemptions.The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has written to the Treasury questioning why the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster do not pay corporation or capital gains tax.

There's loads and loads more I could rant about; waste in the private sector.  Empire building and cr@p appointments in goverment and local government.  Holidays at the public expense.  MPs expenses.  Illegal wars.  Benifit fraud.  2500 quid payments to immigrant crimals to leave the UK and the list goes on...

If any window cleaner makes a few extra quid for his family through declaring a smaller turn-over than what he's made, then morally, I think it's justified.

[windows_chepstow]

...6am start ...

can you clean windows in the dark?

You should start a new thread asking this, but I think you'll find that it's possible and for certain types of work; especially town centre stuff; it's the only way you can do it before the traffic and pedestrians get in your way.

[matt]

i earn under 15K legit

of course its ben said im a " 5 quid a house man, on the dole etc etc " what a laugh that joker was

of course im not, but dont let the truth get in the way of a character attack


back on subject, i only work 3 days a week, so i guess what i earn is still ok, but even as 10 quid a hour, its more than other "semi skilled jobs"

[Sir Squeaky]

Exactly.
Well said Matt.

[Ian_Giles]

He's trebled the price then.
It used to be £70 for 2 and a half hours trad.(when I was slow)

You are both (Tosh included) correct on the account in question, but it also includes the big 3 storey appartment block directly next door and 6 shops (A £10, an £8 a £7.50, a £6.50, a £6.50 and a £4 acount)
These will be completed by approx 8am.

Squeaks is wrong on a couple of points, the job he is talking about was £75 when he was doing it and it drove me potty that it always took him 3 hours to clean it (and he wasn't slow then, in fairness, off a ladder that job is very hard work indeed)
That was....what...5 or 6 years ago Rog?
It went up another fiver, then up another tenner a couple of years later (2 and a half years ago).
Because of WFP it's now one of my top accounts, rather than one I would use almost any excuse to put off doing.

Yes, in town centres you clean in the dark...except it isn't dark, the streetlights make it a doddle.

Matt makes a point that at a tenner an hour it is more than other semi skilled jobs.
Ok, for the hours you actually work what you do is well paid.
But you don't get holiday pay for one thing, and out of that 15k all of your business expenses have to be taken off.
It is your business that is earning £10 an hour, your wages are significantly less than that.
This is yet another mistake that self employed people make, not just window cleaners, they see their hourly rate as their wage, it isn't.
One of the benifits of having a separate account for your business (please note I not not saying a business acount) is that you can make out a standing order from the one you use for your business to the one you use for a personal acount.

Let that standing order be your true wage.

What is left behind is what you run your business off.

And don't forget...your business also needs to make a profit and have funds available for small investments - upgrades to equipment and so on - You will be pretty disappointed to see what your true income actually is.

Gotta shoot, 5 mins to get to my offices

Ian

[Paul Coleman]

Bit worried this time though, as I've no money to pay a tax bill with.
Can you do it on payments?

Yes, I paid in installments this year.  I waited untill they started sending threatening letters and then arrived at a monthly payment plan after a bit of haggling.  The tax man isn't too bad.

It's all paid off now (including most of 06/07s tax) and I feel like I'm rich!  We've even had meat for dinner.

Tosh.  I realise that they must have charged you interest but did they slap a £100 fine on you as well for not paying up on time?

[Paul Coleman]

Rog,
If you are declaring just about everything you earn, less a cup of tea here and paper there (for the sake of arguement) then roughly 15k a year, working a 6 hour day works out at a tenner an hour (near enough)

Doesn't matter that you have a Friday afternoon off, take bank holidays off, get rained off, hacked off or whatever.
Your job is worth a tenner an hour.

All of those reasons that any of us lose time over (hols, rain whatever) have to be taken into consideration.

I have a day tomorrow for instance, where by the time you have been to Mike's and bought your paper I'll have knocked out £206  (6am start and you get your paper at about 8am)
Whatever you may think to the contrary, the prices I'm charging are not rip off prices, were you doing them off a ladder (by that I mean you personally) you would almost certainly want a similar amount for the jobs.

so I could turn around and brag that I'm earning over a £100 an hour.

I'm not, at the end of my tax year I will be turning over somewhere in the region of 25k.
So my average is a paltry 14 quid or so an hour for me (approx a 35 hour working week)

Yet I feel like I am consistantly turning over above a £100 a day...but of course time is lost through hols, rain....
You get the picture?

to get a decent income it is no use thinking, I'll charge this semi £7.00, I can knock out 3 or 4 of these an our easily...I'm on £21 an hour! Over 32k a year!!!!

But of course you are doing no such thing, to achieve a decent income, £7.00 a semi just isn't enough (rog, this isn't a dig at you personally by the way, I'm really just using you as an example).

So many seem to think that because they can bang out well over a ton a day they are earning really good money, but once you have worked out what you have actually turned over in 12 months, whether you work just 5 hours a week or 50...

Your tax return tells you what you are really earning...

I know what you are saying Ian.  I have a couple of joibs that I do on a Saturday morning that are close to each other.  Since using WFP I can bang these out in about 45 minutes and I get paid £49 for them - all before 8 a.m.   That works out at about £65 an hour.  No way do I earn that sort of money overall though - nothing like it.  Another job is for £32 which I knock out in about 35 minutes.  Again that is around £55 an hour.  For anyone to use such jobs as a guide to my overall income would provide a completely false picture.

[windows_chepstow]

Tosh.  I realise that they must have charged you interest but did they slap a £100 fine on you as well for not paying up on time?

Nope, no fine.  I left their bills in my big pile of other bills and contacted them when they threatend court action for the second time.

I then phoned our local tax office, pleaded poverty and the guy was fine.  I wanted to pay 200 quid a month and he wanted me to pay 300 quid a month and we settled at 250 per month.

I did incurr interest, not much though I think, but they did make me pay this years tax in advance, based on last years accounts which I think is a bit unfair and slightly unusual in that from another post this is not normal; apart from one other member here who it happened to.

This is my 3rd self-assessment, I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

[matt]

He's trebled the price then.
It used to be £70 for 2 and a half hours trad.(when I was slow)

Matt makes a point that at a tenner an hour it is more than other semi skilled jobs.
Ok, for the hours you actually work what you do is well paid.
But you don't get holiday pay for one thing, and out of that 15k all of your business expenses have to be taken off.
It is your business that is earning £10 an hour, your wages are significantly less than that.
This is yet another mistake that self employed people make, not just window cleaners, they see their hourly rate as their wage, it isn't.
One of the benifits of having a separate account for your business (please note I not not saying a business acount) is that you can make out a standing order from the one you use for your business to the one you use for a personal acount.

Let that standing order be your true wage.

What is left behind is what you run your business off.

And don't forget...your business also needs to make a profit and have funds available for small investments - upgrades to equipment and so on - You will be pretty disappointed to see what your true income actually is.

ian

i can see what you mean, but many "semi skilled jobs" now only pay 3 weeks holiday a year (no bank holidays or they are inc your 3 weeks), so thats roughly 600 quid a year for that

my business expenses this year have been VERY low, ive paid my PL insurance ( 90 quid) and thats it, nothing else

i get my mileage for my car (but i get allowance for that)

10 quid bag of resin (still have half of it)

i really have little else to show for expenses, though i have just brought a new printer for 20 quid from the Post office

most of what we earn is ours isnt it, or have i missed something here ?? ?? ??

edit, i thought of another expense, my accountant

[bumper]

neaver pay tax, dornt want to join the club,so im out

[Easyclean Windows]

Squeeky....you say you earned 15,000 does your wife work? if not do you take yours and her allowances away before you do your accounts?

[Sir Squeaky]

Yes she does.
Sorry I don't really understand the question.

[DASERVICES]

  I declare everything, better to have a clean conscience than a guilty one.
  Had an interesting debate with my mate over this, he was trying to get
  the price of a job reduced by paying cash in hand. Pointed it out to him he
  was encouraging the guy to break the law which is wrong, would you
  employ someone who does this !!!

  When the Tax man visits at least you will not have sweaty palms.

  Only earned £10k last year and £6k was netted off by claiming for mileage.

  For every £1k you earn you loose out £370 off your tax credits, £220 you pay
  to the tax man and the NI so in the ned you only end up with £410 in your
  pocket.  

  Why break your back to pay the tax man, make life simple and enjoy it.
  The only way you make money is if you take on staff but then you have
  the downsides on this as well.

  Doug