Check out the PI - the only way
For each article on Habré, concerning the advantages or disadvantages of an IT person’s design, such as an IP, hundreds of comments are written by supporters and opponents of this scheme. It feels like the market still has a choice. But I am sure that with the development of remote work, all sorts of agile-approaches and practices that have developed in interaction with remote teams, there is simply no other way in IT. PI - the only form of relationship that corresponds to reality, and not with difficulty “stretches” on it (if you do not consider more “cunning” cases - LLC, CJSC).
Caricature "Without options" by Andrei Abramov.
Under the cut, my IMHO is described exclusively - the experience of a man who has spent more than 15 years in Russia (with Russian customers and employers) with various forms of relations.
For the sake of interest, read the memories of people who lived in the late XIX - early XX century about the then-emerging working class. Working day at 14 o'clock, powerlessness, violence from business owners. The Labor Code was developed much later, but its main task was to streamline the relationship between the employer and the employee in the industrial world. It is focused on physical and even partly on mental work, where productivity is estimated by hours of shifts.
Secretaries, drivers, workers of the industry feel well in relations on shopping center. However, as soon as it comes to creative, scientific research or IT, where the boundaries of the working day are blurred, and there are not enough qualified employees, TC has to retreat, forming some conditional agreement: “We will do it like this, although we are not obliged by TC, our good relationship will guarantee it. ”
Does the Labor Code of the Russian Federation provide for voluntary medical insurance, payment of fitness, coffee and snacks in the office? Not. This is prescribed in separate agreements, and often remains simply in words between the employer and the employee. However, the latter is quite accustomed to this state of affairs, considering all these “buns” to be an indispensable element of cooperation. As a result, there is the TC, there is a job description, and there is - the real state of things, which can be radically different.
Have you heard of the “Italian strikes”? In my opinion, the success of these activities in the “reinsertion” of employers confirms my words.
Even more difficult is the situation with remote work. Formally, remote (or home-based) work exists in our country. But employers, who then will not fire an employee who does not fulfill their obligations, reluctantly go to her. And if they go, then through maximum standardization.
I have worked according to this scheme. I don’t know how the idea of staffing remote work was originally conceived, but in fact you don’t have any influence on the conditions specified in the documents that are sent for signature. The organization has a standard form, but you just have to agree with it and you can’t make any amendments: either all reservations remain only in words, or the process changes are simply refused. Perhaps I was so unlucky.
In my opinion, the remote work scheme works well only where there is a “strong” personnel department, which builds processes well (due to its own strivings for progress) regarding the use of some kind of electronic signatures, updating labor contracts, etc. I personally have never encountered such a thing.
As soon as we start talking about how we can simplify these verbal agreements and the incomprehensible conditions of remote work, putting everything on paper, the topic of the PI inevitably pops up. In fact, the topic of interaction between individual entrepreneurs or legal entities generally emerges, but, as I wrote above, I do not consider the more “cunning” LLC and CJSC.
Working in the office, IT shniki long ago used the so-called “entrepreneurial freedom”, and got used to it. This is not the workers at the machine. They would rather put conditions on the employer (“I’ll leave one day before the release!”) Than to remain powerless and unprotected. Most IT people sell their time for money, and evaluating their work in hours. Many even quite freely regulate this watch: “Today I will come an hour later, tomorrow I will work.” Does it correspond to the job description?
I believe that the PI and the contract for the provision of services (performance of work) is the only way to put real agreements on paper, and not to put a bunch of verbal conditions on top of too general TK, job description, etc.
Very often I see comments on the fact that the scheme with the PI - there is a gray tax evasion from an unscrupulous employer.
In my opinion, when working in an office, you can still debate about the nature of the relationship between the developer and the office that hired him. But if we are talking about remoteness, everything is obvious - this is entrepreneurship. The Contractor (PI) determines its own schedule, expands and maintains the workplace, Internet connection, etc. This is an hourly service. And in the acts then appear hours, which do not have to be “40 per week”. I can work 36, and nobody will care what I did for another 4 hours. Maybe lying on the couch. Or maybe he provided services to someone else.
It seems to me that this noise around the “dullness” of the IP-shnoy scheme is caused solely by the fact that money issues always awaken some kind of paranoia in people. This is normal. But it is necessary to separate rumors and opinions from objective data. In our country there is no law prohibiting individual entrepreneurs from working with only one partner.
Around PI there was some unhealthy amount of prejudice from the 90s. Although in my opinion, this is quite a logical step in the development of yesterday's “employee”. You begin to understand that in fulfilling the task, you need to protect not only the interests of the “employer”. You need to take care of your name, the correctness of the documents to be filled in, that the actual situation should be spelled out in the contracts, and not the mythical one. You begin to read everything that you sign, to the letter, even the act of accepting products from the delivery service. You understand that even the routine gives you a “+1” to a personal professional brand. While searching for a new partner, you apply all the same marketing mechanisms as small and medium businesses in finding customers.
The only significant barrier for today is the refusal of loans to IP entrepreneurs. But first, the situation becomes simpler - one of the banks recently quite consciously issued a fairly large-scale consumer loan to a familiar IP person without a credit history (although IP income came into the account in the same bank).
And if it’s so hard to get a big loan, like a mortgage, this “feature” of the system can be “circumvented” through official employment. I went to work on the Labor Code, worked for the required 3–6 months, took a mortgage and retired again for IP-bread. It is unlikely that such a scheme will have to be turned very often - apartments and houses are not bought every day.
It is believed that the work through the IP is associated with a large amount of bureaucracy, which will have to lead yourself or hire an accountant (and this is money, difficulty finding, etc.). This is not true.
Today, the IE can be opened almost remotely, for example, by contacting the bank, whose representative will come to the meeting to study the original documents (I will not name specific appearances that they would not consider advertising). I was made out. Working from the city for several thousand kilometers from the place of registration, I simply paid for a completely legal intermediary service. It was much cheaper than a round-trip plane ticket. By the way, the idea that by doing so I tied myself to a certain bank forever is just an illusion, because then I quite successfully transferred my account to another bank, where my personal debit card was opened.
The most difficult thing, in my opinion, is to draw up contracts with all counterparties. But often they have their own forms, which you just need to carefully examine (you should also carefully read the employment contract for the TC - there is no difference). In contrast to the agreement on remote work, it is quite possible to make changes there, if something is spelled differently as it actually is. And over time, I even made up my own form from various contracts that came into my hands to make it easier to start communicating with new customers.
Further work depends on how to negotiate and reflect this in the contract. In my case, with each of the counterparties, once a month, it is necessary to issue an additional agreement to the contract, register the cost of the work performed during this period, and then issue an invoice and draw up an act. Three pieces of paper, two of which can be made directly in the online bank interface. An additional agreement after the discussion of the form is easily drawn up according to a template (substituting new numbers). If the partner supports this, instead of running to the post every time, you can receive an EDS and all the workflow can be converted to electronic form.
Yes, you must keep your own taxes. There is no “good uncle” or “aunt” from the accounting department or personnel service, who will complete all the documents for you. But there are online services. And, to be honest, at the initial stage, accountants of counterparties never refused to give me any assistance in formalizing relations with their company - this is in their own interest.
This is again a conversation about responsibility. Many on Habré somehow speak negatively about economists and personnel officers. But we trust these very people to pay for us taxes and contributions to the funds when working on TC. And we trust them enough for this? Honestly, I trust myself more.
It is difficult for me to go into the details of the legislation and constantly updated requirements, instructions and explanatory letters concerning the work of the IP. Even if “from cover to cover” I read all the laws, there is a feeling that it may not work the way I understand it - the system is self-contradictory. However, now there are lots of places where you can get advice to figure it out. All self-respecting banks offer online accounting service, and for typical situations it is quite inexpensive. As a result, the filing of a “terrible and terrible tax return” is reduced to pressing a couple of buttons in the interface. Those. there is a bureaucracy, but it is no longer as large-scale as it was in “pre-Internet” time.
PI wins from employment in TC in that all this bureaucracy is directly related to reality. Agreed - prescribed in the contract.
And when working on TC, has anyone ever seen a Haskell developer job description (for example)? I think no. The maximum that you will see in the personnel department is some typical form of “job description developer” with a standard technology stack, at best with a division into levels - junior, middle, senior. Nobody will be there to prescribe the real details of the work, because it is meaningless: everything changes too quickly to be in parallel with updating the technologies themselves in the company to engage in constant revisions of documentation in the personnel department.
While I have never mentioned that IP - it is also profitable in money. In this case, everything happens perfectly legally: I pay contributions to the funds and the simplified tax system of 6%, taking into account the deduction. In some regions and on this, by the way, you can save money by switching to a patent. I myself, however, did not try this approach. Somewhere there is a tax holiday (for some OKVEDov). Social guarantees from the state are thus not affected. It is at least more honest than work “in black”. And under some set of circumstances it can also become more profitable (a fine for the unemployed was discussed here recently ... pruflink ).
Social guarantees from the employer (LCA, fitness, etc.) in this scheme, of course, are absent by default. But first, no one forbids to register them in the contract, if it is so important. And secondly, starting to perceive an employer not as a “good uncle who needs to get a bigger salary”, but as a partner in the case, you understand that all these “buns” are paid from funds that could be your income. Wouldn't it be better to get them on the account and to dispose yourself, for example, by buying yourself good sneakers for running in the park, instead of paying for the stuffy hall? I heard that some companies that work with IP companies do this: once a year, they allocate sums for a certain social package, in excess of the cost of an hour specified in the documents. And this is great.
Some guarantees are often accompanied by the protection of the TC, which, for example, prohibits the dismissal of employees without a good reason. But, first, on Habré, not so long ago, it was already discussed that there is 1000 and one way to remove an objectionable person from the team. It does not matter here, on what basis this team is assembled - on TK or is it equal partners with individual entrepreneurs. In such situations, it is easier to leave and leave this swamp to swarm in its juice.
Secondly, suppose you are really trying to “fire” (to break the contract in terms of the PI). Under the labor code, you can sue the reinstatement - and there were such precedents. But would you like to work in such a team, where they just wanted to get rid of you for no apparent reason? I, frankly, no. Even if in such a company you are reinstated by the court, the losing side can always create the very “non-working relationship”.
And in a normal situation, regardless of how the relationship is established, the customer (employer) is not interested in something that does not suit a good performer (employee). And if he needs a leave for family reasons - to the point that he is ready to slap a conditional statement of dismissal on the table, if such leave is not granted - this is solved by negotiation. A normal customer does not want to lose a good performer because of such trifles.
Another pressing issue is pension. But as I already mentioned, being an individual entrepreneur, I pay for myself all the prescribed contributions to funds. And having a little more salary than the average in my position, I can put this “super income” on investments in the future - buy normal housing, give a good education to children, invest in conservative or even actively developing areas of the economy. I can even put them in the mattress (conditionally). Again we come to the issue of responsibility: I consciously take responsibility for my old age, not relying on certain funds - state or not - but forming my own “package” of investments in the future, which seems adequate to me. And, most importantly, I know for sure that no one can restructure this part of my investments without my knowledge so as to cover any shortfalls.
***
update 12/06/2018: I
invite everyone who read to this place in the comments. Thanks to those who noted there, it turned out interesting!
If there is no time to study the whole thread, read the summary: https://habr.com/post/432280/ .
Caricature "Without options" by Andrei Abramov.
Under the cut, my IMHO is described exclusively - the experience of a man who has spent more than 15 years in Russia (with Russian customers and employers) with various forms of relations.
Why and for whom does the labor code exist?
For the sake of interest, read the memories of people who lived in the late XIX - early XX century about the then-emerging working class. Working day at 14 o'clock, powerlessness, violence from business owners. The Labor Code was developed much later, but its main task was to streamline the relationship between the employer and the employee in the industrial world. It is focused on physical and even partly on mental work, where productivity is estimated by hours of shifts.
Secretaries, drivers, workers of the industry feel well in relations on shopping center. However, as soon as it comes to creative, scientific research or IT, where the boundaries of the working day are blurred, and there are not enough qualified employees, TC has to retreat, forming some conditional agreement: “We will do it like this, although we are not obliged by TC, our good relationship will guarantee it. ”
Does the Labor Code of the Russian Federation provide for voluntary medical insurance, payment of fitness, coffee and snacks in the office? Not. This is prescribed in separate agreements, and often remains simply in words between the employer and the employee. However, the latter is quite accustomed to this state of affairs, considering all these “buns” to be an indispensable element of cooperation. As a result, there is the TC, there is a job description, and there is - the real state of things, which can be radically different.
Have you heard of the “Italian strikes”? In my opinion, the success of these activities in the “reinsertion” of employers confirms my words.
Remote work and TC
Even more difficult is the situation with remote work. Formally, remote (or home-based) work exists in our country. But employers, who then will not fire an employee who does not fulfill their obligations, reluctantly go to her. And if they go, then through maximum standardization.
I have worked according to this scheme. I don’t know how the idea of staffing remote work was originally conceived, but in fact you don’t have any influence on the conditions specified in the documents that are sent for signature. The organization has a standard form, but you just have to agree with it and you can’t make any amendments: either all reservations remain only in words, or the process changes are simply refused. Perhaps I was so unlucky.
In my opinion, the remote work scheme works well only where there is a “strong” personnel department, which builds processes well (due to its own strivings for progress) regarding the use of some kind of electronic signatures, updating labor contracts, etc. I personally have never encountered such a thing.
What does the SP?
As soon as we start talking about how we can simplify these verbal agreements and the incomprehensible conditions of remote work, putting everything on paper, the topic of the PI inevitably pops up. In fact, the topic of interaction between individual entrepreneurs or legal entities generally emerges, but, as I wrote above, I do not consider the more “cunning” LLC and CJSC.
Working in the office, IT shniki long ago used the so-called “entrepreneurial freedom”, and got used to it. This is not the workers at the machine. They would rather put conditions on the employer (“I’ll leave one day before the release!”) Than to remain powerless and unprotected. Most IT people sell their time for money, and evaluating their work in hours. Many even quite freely regulate this watch: “Today I will come an hour later, tomorrow I will work.” Does it correspond to the job description?
I believe that the PI and the contract for the provision of services (performance of work) is the only way to put real agreements on paper, and not to put a bunch of verbal conditions on top of too general TK, job description, etc.
Gray scheme or white?
Very often I see comments on the fact that the scheme with the PI - there is a gray tax evasion from an unscrupulous employer.
In my opinion, when working in an office, you can still debate about the nature of the relationship between the developer and the office that hired him. But if we are talking about remoteness, everything is obvious - this is entrepreneurship. The Contractor (PI) determines its own schedule, expands and maintains the workplace, Internet connection, etc. This is an hourly service. And in the acts then appear hours, which do not have to be “40 per week”. I can work 36, and nobody will care what I did for another 4 hours. Maybe lying on the couch. Or maybe he provided services to someone else.
It seems to me that this noise around the “dullness” of the IP-shnoy scheme is caused solely by the fact that money issues always awaken some kind of paranoia in people. This is normal. But it is necessary to separate rumors and opinions from objective data. In our country there is no law prohibiting individual entrepreneurs from working with only one partner.
Is the status of IP so terrible?
Around PI there was some unhealthy amount of prejudice from the 90s. Although in my opinion, this is quite a logical step in the development of yesterday's “employee”. You begin to understand that in fulfilling the task, you need to protect not only the interests of the “employer”. You need to take care of your name, the correctness of the documents to be filled in, that the actual situation should be spelled out in the contracts, and not the mythical one. You begin to read everything that you sign, to the letter, even the act of accepting products from the delivery service. You understand that even the routine gives you a “+1” to a personal professional brand. While searching for a new partner, you apply all the same marketing mechanisms as small and medium businesses in finding customers.
The only significant barrier for today is the refusal of loans to IP entrepreneurs. But first, the situation becomes simpler - one of the banks recently quite consciously issued a fairly large-scale consumer loan to a familiar IP person without a credit history (although IP income came into the account in the same bank).
And if it’s so hard to get a big loan, like a mortgage, this “feature” of the system can be “circumvented” through official employment. I went to work on the Labor Code, worked for the required 3–6 months, took a mortgage and retired again for IP-bread. It is unlikely that such a scheme will have to be turned very often - apartments and houses are not bought every day.
And what about the bureaucracy?
It is believed that the work through the IP is associated with a large amount of bureaucracy, which will have to lead yourself or hire an accountant (and this is money, difficulty finding, etc.). This is not true.
Today, the IE can be opened almost remotely, for example, by contacting the bank, whose representative will come to the meeting to study the original documents (I will not name specific appearances that they would not consider advertising). I was made out. Working from the city for several thousand kilometers from the place of registration, I simply paid for a completely legal intermediary service. It was much cheaper than a round-trip plane ticket. By the way, the idea that by doing so I tied myself to a certain bank forever is just an illusion, because then I quite successfully transferred my account to another bank, where my personal debit card was opened.
The most difficult thing, in my opinion, is to draw up contracts with all counterparties. But often they have their own forms, which you just need to carefully examine (you should also carefully read the employment contract for the TC - there is no difference). In contrast to the agreement on remote work, it is quite possible to make changes there, if something is spelled differently as it actually is. And over time, I even made up my own form from various contracts that came into my hands to make it easier to start communicating with new customers.
Further work depends on how to negotiate and reflect this in the contract. In my case, with each of the counterparties, once a month, it is necessary to issue an additional agreement to the contract, register the cost of the work performed during this period, and then issue an invoice and draw up an act. Three pieces of paper, two of which can be made directly in the online bank interface. An additional agreement after the discussion of the form is easily drawn up according to a template (substituting new numbers). If the partner supports this, instead of running to the post every time, you can receive an EDS and all the workflow can be converted to electronic form.
Yes, you must keep your own taxes. There is no “good uncle” or “aunt” from the accounting department or personnel service, who will complete all the documents for you. But there are online services. And, to be honest, at the initial stage, accountants of counterparties never refused to give me any assistance in formalizing relations with their company - this is in their own interest.
This is again a conversation about responsibility. Many on Habré somehow speak negatively about economists and personnel officers. But we trust these very people to pay for us taxes and contributions to the funds when working on TC. And we trust them enough for this? Honestly, I trust myself more.
It is difficult for me to go into the details of the legislation and constantly updated requirements, instructions and explanatory letters concerning the work of the IP. Even if “from cover to cover” I read all the laws, there is a feeling that it may not work the way I understand it - the system is self-contradictory. However, now there are lots of places where you can get advice to figure it out. All self-respecting banks offer online accounting service, and for typical situations it is quite inexpensive. As a result, the filing of a “terrible and terrible tax return” is reduced to pressing a couple of buttons in the interface. Those. there is a bureaucracy, but it is no longer as large-scale as it was in “pre-Internet” time.
PI wins from employment in TC in that all this bureaucracy is directly related to reality. Agreed - prescribed in the contract.
And when working on TC, has anyone ever seen a Haskell developer job description (for example)? I think no. The maximum that you will see in the personnel department is some typical form of “job description developer” with a standard technology stack, at best with a division into levels - junior, middle, senior. Nobody will be there to prescribe the real details of the work, because it is meaningless: everything changes too quickly to be in parallel with updating the technologies themselves in the company to engage in constant revisions of documentation in the personnel department.
Money and social security
While I have never mentioned that IP - it is also profitable in money. In this case, everything happens perfectly legally: I pay contributions to the funds and the simplified tax system of 6%, taking into account the deduction. In some regions and on this, by the way, you can save money by switching to a patent. I myself, however, did not try this approach. Somewhere there is a tax holiday (for some OKVEDov). Social guarantees from the state are thus not affected. It is at least more honest than work “in black”. And under some set of circumstances it can also become more profitable (a fine for the unemployed was discussed here recently ... pruflink ).
Social guarantees from the employer (LCA, fitness, etc.) in this scheme, of course, are absent by default. But first, no one forbids to register them in the contract, if it is so important. And secondly, starting to perceive an employer not as a “good uncle who needs to get a bigger salary”, but as a partner in the case, you understand that all these “buns” are paid from funds that could be your income. Wouldn't it be better to get them on the account and to dispose yourself, for example, by buying yourself good sneakers for running in the park, instead of paying for the stuffy hall? I heard that some companies that work with IP companies do this: once a year, they allocate sums for a certain social package, in excess of the cost of an hour specified in the documents. And this is great.
Some guarantees are often accompanied by the protection of the TC, which, for example, prohibits the dismissal of employees without a good reason. But, first, on Habré, not so long ago, it was already discussed that there is 1000 and one way to remove an objectionable person from the team. It does not matter here, on what basis this team is assembled - on TK or is it equal partners with individual entrepreneurs. In such situations, it is easier to leave and leave this swamp to swarm in its juice.
Secondly, suppose you are really trying to “fire” (to break the contract in terms of the PI). Under the labor code, you can sue the reinstatement - and there were such precedents. But would you like to work in such a team, where they just wanted to get rid of you for no apparent reason? I, frankly, no. Even if in such a company you are reinstated by the court, the losing side can always create the very “non-working relationship”.
And in a normal situation, regardless of how the relationship is established, the customer (employer) is not interested in something that does not suit a good performer (employee). And if he needs a leave for family reasons - to the point that he is ready to slap a conditional statement of dismissal on the table, if such leave is not granted - this is solved by negotiation. A normal customer does not want to lose a good performer because of such trifles.
Another pressing issue is pension. But as I already mentioned, being an individual entrepreneur, I pay for myself all the prescribed contributions to funds. And having a little more salary than the average in my position, I can put this “super income” on investments in the future - buy normal housing, give a good education to children, invest in conservative or even actively developing areas of the economy. I can even put them in the mattress (conditionally). Again we come to the issue of responsibility: I consciously take responsibility for my old age, not relying on certain funds - state or not - but forming my own “package” of investments in the future, which seems adequate to me. And, most importantly, I know for sure that no one can restructure this part of my investments without my knowledge so as to cover any shortfalls.
***
update 12/06/2018: I
invite everyone who read to this place in the comments. Thanks to those who noted there, it turned out interesting!
If there is no time to study the whole thread, read the summary: https://habr.com/post/432280/ .