contract working question

I have been offered a job working about 8 hours a week on contract and I just kind of want to know what it involves, how much tax do you have to pay, what you miss out on (ie holiday pay, and then how much that actually is ) and what you have to do for the IRD and anything else.
I can't decide whether or not to take this job and just want to know how much more per $1 earned I have to pay out if you know what I mean

I don't really know what I want to know, as I have always just been paid wages so don't know what being on contract really means....sorry, dim Mother that has been out of the workforce in NZ for a long time....

I would have thought it depended exactly how the job was set up. If you are contracting therefore invoicing the company for your services then the above post applies.

If you are on a fixed contract i.e. they only ask you to work for 6mths etc then you may just be on wages 'as per normal' however you will likely get 8% on top of your hourly wage in lieu of accruing annual leave. I now have a casual contract with work and this is how it works for me.

You may just want to clarify it with the company first

I have been a contractor for about 9 years now (as has DH), we work on the principle that we put about 35% of earnings away to cover tax, gst, acc etc. We also put a lot of our costs through the company (obviously only valid costs that are related)...like internet, cellphones, carparking etc, which means that we can claim the gst on those.

As Joshierocks mentioned - it can be quite time consuming with all the tax paperwork, and it pays to keep on top of it...but you do get to charge a much higher hourly rate.

Being a contractor is different from having a fixed term contract, and there are different considerations when it comes to tax....

We have found that having a good accountant is invaluable, as if you are registered as a company you will need to do yearly returns etc.