Cowshed Collective; more crap behaviour, more reasons to avoid.
It’s getting a little tiring - and tiresome - having to warn freelancers about the dangers of working for Cowshed Collective (a company run by George Cowin and Ryan O’Shea).
Late payers, serial liars, deeply unpleasant company to work for, they now have one more sin to add to the growing list of iniquities they inflict on freelancers.
Because Cowshed Collective have now decided to strike out on their own when it comes to how they tax their freelance workers and what rights they consider them to have. The company is currently making another set of videos for Footasylum and are requiring everyone, whatever their grade, to invoice as self employed rather than being paid via PAYE.
As most people in the production industry know, only certain grades of worker (those in senior positions) are allowed by HMRC to be treated as self employed, a status which is also verifiable by using the self employment checker on the gov.uk website.
Runners and assistants etc cannot and must not be paid in this way, a requirement which other companies (*see below) are very careful to observe, knowing that HMRC are likely to take a very dim view if they should seek to avoid their tax obligations by not doing things correctly.
Cowshed however seem very sanguine about breaking the regulations, content no doubt to rest on the assumption that HMRC hasn’t got the wherewithal to follow up any rule-breakers. The company is also more than happy to keep the money they save by not giving people their legal entitlement to leave, or holiday pay in lieu. Less cash in the pockets of freelancers, more money for them - what’s not to like?!
If you do find yourself in the unfortunate position of working for this company - or if you care that Cowshed are behaving in this way - you can always report them to HMRC. Enough reports might make HMRC consider it worth their while to have a look at Cowshed’s books, not least because they could make a very good and public example by hauling the company over the coals.
Meanwhile however, the usual words apply: Cowshed Collective, Freelancers Beware!
*Here is a list of a few of the top production companies in the UK which (unlike Cowshed Collective) follow the HMRC rules contained in this document, paying all their runners and assistants etc via PAYE. It includes the BBC of course (not a company which likes to spend money where it doesn’t have to, so you can bet they have checked the rules) and of course ITV:
All3Media
Shine Group
Endemol UK
Zodiak UK
IMG Sports Media
FremantleMedia UK
Shed Media
Tinopolis
Avalon
NBC Universal
Left Bank
Twofour
Hat Trick
DCD Media
Boom
Argonon
Impossible Pictures
Raw TV
Sony
Nutopia
Neal Street
Pulse Films
Aardman
Rondo
Firecracker
Fresh One
Red
Big Talk
Parthenon
Zig Zag
So Television
Mammoth Screen
Input Media
CPL
Baby Cow
Atlantic
Love Productions
Off the Fence
Ten Alps
Hartswood
Betty
Spun Gold
Ruby Films
Somethin’ Else
Keo Films
Wag TV
Windfall
Icon
Oxford Film & TV
The Garden
Blast Films
Electric Sky
Outline
Blink
touch/can
True North
Splash
Blue Zoo
Tern TV
DLT
Wide Eyed
Telesgop
Green Inc
Sixteen South
Thumbs Up
Kindle
Rival
3DD
Magnum Media
Walsh Bros.
Pacific
Reef
Quicksilver
Pilot
Wild Pictures
Matchlight
Attaboy
First Look
Minnow
Testimony
True Vision
Airborne
Illuminations
Warp
CTVC
Back2Back
Fulcrum
Bigger pictures
HCA Entertainment
Lambent
Seventh Art
Modern TV
Hardcash
Coolabi
Skyworks
Rise
Red Planet
ClearStory Ltd
Lupus
Bungalow Town
(ie all the top 100 production companies in the UK).