Brexit: a re-vote
- Thread starter Chilliboy13
- Start date
Sometimes I am a bystander, I work across a number of sites as a consultant, 3 or 4 a year, some things on the sites are of my doing, others just happen, and I’m an observer.
We employ the best available. Who doesn’t?
It’s factory work, but it’s decent safe work for those that want it. It’s not my idea of fun, but someone has to do it. We employ a very pleasant lady to clean the offices, canteen and toilets. I wouldn’t want it, but she’s happy enough. We can’t all be Prime Minister.
On the contrary, we’d be mad to do as you say. We comply with the law. A lot of my role is about compliance. I don’t make the law but by God I lay it down and if you break it in my factory then I will deal with you in no uncertain terms. Regulation is just that, the law. Unions are a statutory right, as is min wage, WT directive, etc. Earlier this week I was spelling it out to a shift manager that if he broke a particular rule and someone were killed then he would go to prison, and that even if nobody died it would be a disciplinary matter and he’d be sacked.
We provide decent employment for people in reasonable conditions. I uphold the rules around safe employment of people and production of safe food.
They are knobheads if they don’t turn up or do the work! The ones that turn up are great.I have great respect for the ones who do a difficult job for little pay, and I defend them to the hilt. Part of my function at this factory is to set up best working practices here and train people accordingly. Nobody gets treated as a disposable piece of machinery unless they can’t be bothered doing their bit, in which case I will indeed take them through the disciplinary procedure and if they don’t reform I’ll dump them.
Seanm
pfm Member
Ag
Now, maybe we can get back to helping Rich with his distance learning module in European business studies.
Agreed.
Now, maybe we can get back to helping Rich with his distance learning module in European business studies.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
If Rich is going to meet the new land lord/lady, I'd advise him to keep a second mobile phone hidden in a place on his person he can reach even if his hands are cuffed behind him and a number he can dial as an SOS if his head is completely taped up.
You serious? If so I'll ring my mate who has done just this. Reply or PM, either way.
richardg
Admonishtrator
Yes, pming you now!
MikeMA
pfm Member
This neatly sumarizes the difference between the dirigiste, code Napoléon approach, where everything is forbidden unless specifically permitted by the state, and the laissez faire, Anglo Saxon approach where everything is permitted unless specifically forbidden by the state. I remember this being argued in the 1970s as a reason why the UK would never fit in with the EU. Probably all bollocks.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
richgilb, I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic but did you not consider doing a little research and making preparations before you moved your business to France and/or Germany?
richardg
Admonishtrator
Well I was already selling 30% of total sales into these countries from UK and I established a German company before I arrived.. The market is understood and I made sure I had a base to start from.... but the bureaucracy has been a surprise, I confess, in both countries. Not in terms of me not expecting any. I just was not expecting it to be this hard.
Not sure if it is worth researching that kind of stuff, though? Just get stuck in and get it sorted....
Not sure if it is worth researching that kind of stuff, though? Just get stuck in and get it sorted....
Go and talk to URSSAF, they'll sort you out. By the way, if your French isn't good, you're going to have major problems.
A couple of useful sites:https://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr, https://www.portail-autoentrepreneur.fr/statut-auto-entrepreneur.
An accountant is almost obligatory, and most will take you through all the necessary steps.
Note that your status changes according to your income. Once you go over the 82000€ mark, you can no longer remain a micro-entreprise, plus you'll need a TVA number if you don't have one.
I take it you're aware that you pay effectively 2 types of tax in France, income tax to the government, and social charges to URSSAF/RSI, the latter being the major ones.
A couple of useful sites:https://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr, https://www.portail-autoentrepreneur.fr/statut-auto-entrepreneur.
An accountant is almost obligatory, and most will take you through all the necessary steps.
Note that your status changes according to your income. Once you go over the 82000€ mark, you can no longer remain a micro-entreprise, plus you'll need a TVA number if you don't have one.
I take it you're aware that you pay effectively 2 types of tax in France, income tax to the government, and social charges to URSSAF/RSI, the latter being the major ones.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Rich, you're a mere powder monkey on the gun deck of the Golden Fleece in he Battle of Brexit. You'd be better keeping your head down while the man who bestrides the European stage- DD, sorts it all out for us. Alternatively, given the reality, you could kiss your arse goodbye.
richardg
Admonishtrator
Thanks
I'm on the B1 class at French school....so not good!
The number is why I am doing it. I cant trade on leboncoin without one.
Yes I have been to the chamber of commerce (and conducted the meeting in French but rather clumsily), my contribution on the 82,000 will be 15% total all taxes.
The hopeful benefit here is that in theory I don't need an accountant as I just pay tax on the sales.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Interesting, don't you think, that one reason many people voted Brexit was alleged over-regulation by Brussels. Given your surprise at the amount of bureaucracy in France, and even Germany, does this not suggest, perhaps, that those claims of over-control were slightly exaggerated?
richardg
Admonishtrator
It may be so. But I'd need to look at ease of doing business scores over 30 years or so, possibly vs the EU average to see if we have moved in the wrong direction. UK is certainly a great place to get going as a sole trader or SME vs here today. I look with envy, you can just get going in UK, as long as you fill in a short tax return a year or so later.
It looks like it might be heading in the wrong direction here but another 20 years would be useful to see more clearly, and just ranked against other EU countries not the world.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/ease-of-doing-business
I have also found the very first report that led to the WB Ease of Doing Business but I don't think in this early version they actaully rank:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7892.pdf
Edit! Looks like we have moved from 14th to 7th since 2000. Bizarrely France was about 80th and Germany 14th. But France has moved up to 32 and Germany has dropped to 21st!
Conclusion, we cant use this data at all!
It looks like it might be heading in the wrong direction here but another 20 years would be useful to see more clearly, and just ranked against other EU countries not the world.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/ease-of-doing-business
I have also found the very first report that led to the WB Ease of Doing Business but I don't think in this early version they actaully rank:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7892.pdf
Edit! Looks like we have moved from 14th to 7th since 2000. Bizarrely France was about 80th and Germany 14th. But France has moved up to 32 and Germany has dropped to 21st!
Conclusion, we cant use this data at all!
Mirrors our experience, we employed our first Polish workers when a couple of locals didn't turn up one Saturday morning.
We need a quorum to run our harvesting team.
My brother saw a couple of miserable kids sitting by the road; turned out they'd just been thrown off the train from Harwich for having no ticket of cash.
By that night they had jobs, a mobile home to live in and an emergency food shop.
We've been employing their friends and relatives ever since.
Most memorable was when one read his first weekly payslip for just over £500; beyond his wildest dreams by the response.
A very familiar story. A couple of years back I worked at a strange little factory that made mushy peas, can you believe. I never worked out how it was viable, turns out it wasn't. After the directors had done the sums on employing me to bring it up to the standards needed by a major retailer and factoring in low volumes of a low value product, they moved the volume to another factory and shut it. Shame. Anyway, this was my first encounter with Hungarians. Of about 18 workers 11 were Hungarian. It was a familiar story - someone left, they hired a Hungarian woman from the agency. She worked better than most so became temp to perm, happy days. More staff needed, her brother/friend/boyfriend was available. So it went on. They stayed, by the time I landed the original starter (whose name escapes me) was the supervisor and ran the place with a rod of iron. Every one of her mates who'd come in turned up on time, got their heads down, and did the work. They were one of the most cheerful bunches I'd come across. I learned "yo reggelt" and "hogy vagy" (Good morning, how are you?) which always went down well, the rest was easy.
