# Self Employed Status of RTE Broadcasters



## censuspro (5 Jul 2011)

Please move if I have posted this in the wrong forum but as it is primarily a tax query/subject I felt I should post here.

Following on from this article in today's independent, I mentions how some of RTE's Broadcasters; _"Many of the RTE presenters are on self-employed contracts and are not directly   employed by the state broadcaster."

_Surely the Broadcasters would not meet the criteria to be deemed as self-employed? The persuasive criteria as to whether someone is an employee is as follows:



 Is under the control of another person who directs as to how, when and where the work is carried out.
 Supplies labour only.
 Receives a fixed hourly/weekly/monthly wage.
 Cannot sub–contract the work. If the work can be subcontracted and  paid on by the person subcontracting the work, the employer/employee  relationship may simply be transferred on.
 Does not supply materials for the job.
 Does not provide equipment other than the small tools of the trade.
 Is not exposed to financial risk in carrying out the work.
 Does not assume any responsibility for investment and management in the business.
 Does not have the opportunity to profit from sound management in the  scheduling of engagements (i.e. jobs) or in the performance of tasks  arising from those engagements.
 Works set hours or a given number of hours per week or month.
 Works for one person or for one business.
 Receives expense payments to cover subsistence and/or travel expenses.
 Is entitled to extra pay or time off for overtime.

It seems to me, using the above criteria, that RTE broadcasters should be taxed as PAYE employees.


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## paulpd (5 Jul 2011)

I think the broadcasters may be employees of their own company. This company has a contract with RTE and the broadcasters draw a normal PAYE salary from their company.


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## p15574 (6 Jul 2011)

paulpd said:


> I think the broadcasters may be employees of their own company. This company has a contract with RTE and the broadcasters draw a normal PAYE salary from their company.



Yes, as the OP might have been alluding to,  in recent years the Revenue have cracked down on this - for example, an IT contractor, a PAYE employee of their own company which has a contract with another company. If they work on-site, 5 days a week, for just one client, long term, the Revenue Commissioners regards them as being employees of the main company.

I think that the above RTE 'contractors' are indeed a perfect example of this.


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## Spear (6 Jul 2011)

censuspro said:


> The persuasive criteria as to whether someone is an employee is as follows:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
As a matter of interest, what is the source for this list?


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## Mpsox (6 Jul 2011)

p15574 said:


> Yes, as the OP might have been alluding to, in recent years the Revenue have cracked down on this - for example, an IT contractor, a PAYE employee of their own company which has a contract with another company. If they work on-site, 5 days a week, for just one client, long term, the Revenue Commissioners regards them as being employees of the main company.
> 
> I think that the above RTE 'contractors' are indeed a perfect example of this.


 
however, a lot of the RTE "contractors" don't work 5 days a week for RTE and have other sources of income via newspaper articles, working for other stations (eg Tubridy on the BBC), personal appearances/endorsements/speechs/hosting functions and awards cermonies etc


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## confusedude (6 Jul 2011)

Incidentally does anyone know which RTE broadcasters are staffers ? Or have a link to a source for this info ?


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## huskerdu (6 Jul 2011)

confusedude said:


> Incidentally does anyone know which RTE broadcasters are staffers ? Or have a link to a source for this info ?




I dont have a list, but I remember this being discussed in the press a few times. 

AFAIK, Derek Mooney is a staffer, and possibly Ronan Collins, 

Ryan Tubridy, Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane are all contractors. 

Dont know about the rest.

Just googled a newspaper article who said that Joe Duffy and Miriam O'Callaghan are contractors and confirmed Derek Mooney is a staffer.


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## JMR (6 Jul 2011)

Same with radio presenters as far as I know.

Ian Dempsey for example is a contractor in that he is a director of his own limited company who provide services to Today FM.

As noted previously though, these types of contractors (radio / TV) would be engaged in other promotional activities etc outside of the radio or TV station that most people associate them with.


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## DB74 (6 Jul 2011)

It doesn't have to be a 5-day-a-week job to be considered employment and it is irrelevant what the person does outside of RTE.

A one-day gig, or half-day, or 1 hour could just as easily be considered employment


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## JMR (6 Jul 2011)

censuspro said:


> Works for one person or for one business.


 
I would have thought that if a company has a regular contract with multiple companies (RTE, Independent Newspapers, etc, etc,) then the director of the first company can hardly be considered to be an employee of any of the latter from a taxation or any other point of view.

The problem arises for contractors (IT, Engineering etc) when they are placed on a long term contract at one customers site and can therefore run the risk of being treated as an employee of that customer from a taxation point of view.


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## mandelbrot (6 Jul 2011)

JMR said:


> I would have thought that if a company has a regular contract with multiple companies (RTE, Independent Newspapers, etc, etc,) then the director of the first company can hardly be considered to be an employee of any of the latter from a taxation or any other point of view.



I see what you mean but consider a scenario: if I have a company and it employs you and I as electricians, and I get a maintenance contract with RTE, which means that you work in RTE all day everyday, changing lightbulbs and whatnot. I invoice RTE for your time, and then pay you a wage, would you be employed by my company or by RTE? (The answer is you'd be employed by the company).

And, if I retired next month and you took control of the company, and continued to spend your days working in RTE, with the company issuing invoices to RTE and paying your director's salary... at what point would you cease to be an employee of the company and become an employee of RTE?



JMR said:


> The problem arises for contractors (IT, Engineering etc) when they are placed on a long term contract at one customers site and can therefore run the risk of being treated as an employee of that customer from a taxation point of view.



And indeed they are an employee of that company, if they attempt to go in there as a self employed contractor.

If, however, they are an employee of either their own Limited company or an umbrella company, who invoice the client company and pay the "employee"'s wage then that's a different employment.


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## Brendan Burgess (7 Jan 2017)

Posts yesterday were reported as defamatory and as offensive. 

I have no intention of wasting my weekend reading long post to assess this or not.

For future reference, please do not discuss the tax affairs of individuals.  If you are concerned about them, then do so in some other forum under your real name and put your home at risk from a legal action, not mine.

Brendan


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