nick14
Whoever or what ever has told you that you must account with a particular company which is linked to Brookfield is talking rubbish. You can not be forced to account with anyone. If it clearly states that in your contract I would get that bit of paper and take it to an employment lawer before you even think about putting your name on it.
If you are self employed, you are not required to have an accountant. You can do all of your accounting and HMRC returns yourself.
I am not sure what Brookfield has to do with Irish Tax Law, as if you are working for a company, (i.e, yourself), you pay tax where your company is based and registered.
With regards to VAT, I have no idea about the Irish system, but here in the UK, you must charge it and it must be paid if you are VAT registered. How you offset it and pay the Revenue will fall under either the fixed rate or normal accounting systems. Either way, you MUST produce a VAT invoice that MUST be sent to Brookfield. This should be done every month, but Brookfield have made it clear that they will only pay VAT every quarter, (even though they are supposed to pay it monthly), and that will be once they have claimed thier VAT back from HMRC. This normally means that you as the pilot paying VAT to HMRC are out of pocket a few thousand pounds plus for at least a month.
Dealing with Brookfield is very difficult. Even though DD is the only person that you ever deal with, (as it seems no one else has the authority to fart without his say so), and there are only 7 odd people who work in the office, every time you talk to them about anything, it is being dealt with by someone else. Eventually though it always ends up being DD that tells you that it isnt going to happen.
Out of interest, what are the new contracts like. Have the pay rates all changed?