On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:57:48 +0000, geoff wrote:
In message , Cicero
writes
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:32:01 +0000, Adrian wrote:
HI All
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:45:02 GMT, "George"
wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in
message m...
George wrote:
TMH :-)
Woman next door has just had a new toilet and wash basin fitted by a
local handyman.
Ripped the old toilet and washbasin out,fitted the new ones and a
new collar for the toilet to waste pipe.
All for £60,she supplied the Toilet and Washbasin plus taps.
Just inspected the work for her and its 100% good job.
Shame he doesn't have the sense to charge a decent price. Not far off
a days work, allowing for snags - you would need to book a day just in
case.
So, assuming he works 6 days a week, his total turnover is £18K a
year - less expenses. Lucky if he ends up with minimum wage.
Trust he is fully insured, pays Income Tax & NI, taxes & insures his
vehicle
properly etc.
Thank heavens I sell my services for what they are worth. I charge
2.5 times what he does & am fully booked until the middle of April,
with jobs coming in every day.
The man is clearly an idiot.
--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257
He does work for a firm so weekends are a side line for him. Started 9
this morning and finished 2 o'clock this afternoon,I must say I thought
£60 WAS cheap for what he did and was a bit dubious about his
workmanship but I had to take me hat off to him for a perfect clean job.
Seems he's in demand according to my neighbour.
Doesn't sound like a very fair comparison to me.
The guy's clearly working for 'cash in hand' - so he's not only
fiddling the tax system, but the customer's lacking the sort of backup
that they should expect from a 'proper' tradesman. (Suppose there's an
emergency during the week - when he's doing his day job. Can he drop
everything and get round to fix it ? Doubt it..)
There's always somebody who can do something 'cheaper' - but there must
be a good reason why it's cheaper. Cheaper doesn't always mean 'better
value'
This fellow has no financial outlay (your friend provided the new
fittings), no overheads (possibly using firm's transport, tools - maybe
even materials) and not a large outlay on marketing himself (as it seems
he's working for beer money - and get paid by his employers for his real
job).
Nothing against the guy - good luck to him - but it's not really
comparing like with like, IMHO
Adrian
==================================
The fact is that there's a thriving 'cash-in-hand' market and always has
been. It's usually a mutually satisfactory arrangement, it caters
for the lower end of the market and despite some extreme examples of bad
or dangerous workmanship there seems to be little trouble from the
arrangement.
Many of the worst examples of poor /dangerous / overpriced work come from
properly self-employed traders in expensive vans who simply decide that
life as a rogue trader is far more profitable than honest workmanship.
-----------------------------------
You mean income tax ?
Emergency measure brought in to pay for the Boer war I thought
... which they omitted to repeal
Rogue governments, that's what I say
==================================
I thought that Income Tax was introduced to finance the Napoleonic wars,
but I wasn't thinking of Income Tax in any case. I was thinking of that
(hopefully) small section of traders who persistently and deliberately
demand extortionate rates for their services. They know they will always
manage to catch the unwary and uninformed. That is the kind of dishonesty
that does nobody any good.
Cic.
--
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Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
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