Good evening,
I started being self employed in the late 1990s and have always played fair on the tax front.
I am also well aware of the stupid schemes set up and fallen for by people who had the intelligence to know better but the greed to get involved anyway.
There is another side to "its all a scam" though, I used to commute 127 miles each way on a daily basis for one job, just over a 100 miles each way to another.
As the government cracked down on fake self employment it created a culture where clients said it is easier and safer to make you an employee regardless.
As a self employed person travelling to a client's site the fuel and wear and tear on the car were allowable expenses, as an employee they are not.
If you are doing 50,000 plus miles a year and having to fund the fuel and vehicle maintenance costs out of salary you are going to say expletive deleted.
That sort of mileage trashes a car every year and as you are doing this sort of mileage you really don't want a car with a 1l engine that screams at you at 70mph on the motorway.
So I retired, "The Government" taxed working to such a high level that it wasn't worth doing any more!
Leaving home at 4am and getting back at 9pm is not an easy life.
Bye
Ian