Talk:IR35

message: I've deleted the claim that IR35 results in a higher tax than employment. I think this relies on an implicit assumption that a rate is agreed and only afterwards a decision made about who is liable for any employers NI. The opposite is far more likely to be true. A client or agency might offer the contractor the choice between being paid as a temporary employee or receiving a gross payment to their company, but the client would take into account any liability for employers NI resulting from this choice and offer different rates so that their overall cost was the same regardless.--Chris King 18:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-instated criticism that IR35 results in a higher tax than employment 

message: This entry was written by members of the Professional Contractors Group, a potentially biased party. See this article for details. I know nothing about this topic, but someone with knowledge of the field should take a look for any POV in the article. —BrianSmithson 14:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Here is the quote: "The Professional Contractors Group (PCG), an organisation for freelance and temporary contract workers in the UK, has joined the authoring ranks of Wikipedia, the open source encyclopaedia. John Kell, political researcher for the PCG, has written three entries, two on British taxation law, with a decidedly pro-PCG bias." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joaquin Murietta (talk • contribs) 04:47, 14 November 2005.
The article has undergone significant edits since then. See the history. Is there something specific about the current revision that you would like to dispute? ⟳ausa کui × 09:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will take a look Joaquin Murietta 15:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article on ''Information World Review'' 

message: ::Agreed. Here is the quote: "The Professional Contractors Group (PCG), an organisation for freelance and temporary contract workers in the UK, has joined the authoring ranks of Wikipedia, the open source encyclopaedia. John Kell, political researcher for the PCG, has written three entries, two on British taxation law, with a decidedly pro-PCG bias." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joaquin Murietta (talk • contribs) 04:47, 14 November 2005.
The article has undergone significant edits since then. See the history. Is there something specific about the current revision that you would like to dispute? ⟳ausa کui × 09:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will take a look Joaquin Murietta 15:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed per "Information World Review"

message: It would be interesting to develop this article to show how this has impacted on the key UK IT sector of the economy. Certainly as a likely target of IR35, it changed the shape of my work to the extent that I now no longer accept contract assignments in the UK and I know a number of other fairly senior players in the market who have either abandoned the UK as a workplace or who have changed the structure of their business relationships to place themselves outside of the aegis of IR35. Sjc 09:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impact on UK economy 

message: The intermediary is always responsible for Employers NI as is any employer within the PAYE system. For this reason the nominal tax paid by the caught worker is 12% more. Further they would pay the 1% extra over the NI ceiling. The Terms and Conditions under which a worker operates may not be clear at the time of agreeing a rate. [anon.]
Regarding "the nominal tax paid by the caught worker is 12% more." Let's assume that "worker" in this context means "worker and his company" since it's the company that pays the employers NI. Do you mean a worker caught by IR35 pays more tax than a not-caught worker? If so, no argument, but not sure why you bothered to say it. If you mean a caught worker pays more tax than an employee whose gross salary is the same as the caught workers rate, then yes, but it's a meaningless conclusion because it results from an unbelievable premise: that clients/agencies would generally agree to precisely the same rate regardless of whether or not they were going to be liable for employers NI on the payments. Chris King 15:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to be conducting orginal research and using this to justify a statement in the article. Wikipedia:No original research. If the disputed statement in the article is to remain, you need to find a reliable source to back up the statement.Dan88888 (talk) 12:09, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Workers under IR35 and Employers NI 

message: A Press Release by the Professional Contractors Group gives the number of Investigations into IR35 by those represented by various advisors as 1161 investigations and only 3 where the taxpayer was found within the regulations. Average length of these investigations is 2 years and they have lasted from a few months to over 4 years. The PMG has consistantly claimed that figures are not kept most recently on the 29th of November in response to a question by Norman Lamb MP - "To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people have been investigated by HM Customs and Revenue to determine whether IR35 applies to them in each of the last five years; how many of these were found to fall within IR35; what the (a) total cost and (b) average duration of such investigations was in each year; and what estimate he has made of the additional tax revenue raised as a result of those investigations in each year." To which she answered "HMRC does not routinely collect data in respect of specific types of employer obligations from the PAYE system. It is therefore not possible to isolate how many investigations have solely related to the intermediaries legislation." This can be found on Hansard here; http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm051129/text/51129w16.htm#51129w16.html_wqn10  So the PCG figures remain the only published figures available.
As for the actual employment status rather than deemed employment status. There are a few cases in this area. One O'Murphy v HP involved an IT Contractor who claimed that he was employed by Hewlett Packard. In this he was found not to be because no contract existed between the worker ( O'Murphy ) and the notional employer ( HP ) (see http://www.egos.co.uk/cases/omurphy_v_Hewlett_Packard.htm for the judgement).
There was a contract between The company O'Murphy and an agency, and the agency and HP. It is these contracts which IR35 seeks to set aside in determining if the worker is caught under the regulations. So while the EAT (Employment Appeals Tribunal) will consider there to be no contract between the worker and the notional employer. The IR maintain there is a notional (ie not existing in reality) contract between the worker and the employer. For this reason it is perfectly feasible for a person to be caught and taxed as an employee without actually being one. In the event their services are not required (even if this occurs before the end of the contract) no redundancy would be owing by the client. Something that an employee would expect (except when fired, even here there is a difference. To fire an employee requires a reason, for most freelancers this is not the case). PaulSC 23:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of investigations and are those caught Are they actually employees 

message: This idea is making my head spin a little bit, and forgive my ignorance - but is there a specific tax form that was created to be applicable to this situation? If so, is it possible for someone in the UK to find a picture of it? If there is, I'll add it to the requested images. Verloren Hoop 20:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: Substituted at 18:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This article seems to be a honeypot for various consultants and accountants etc. wishing to promote their services. I've just removed a 'Notes' section with nothing in it but two external links to such service providers, and I can see from the history that many more have appeared before.  Per WP:PROMOTION "External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article."  From what I can gather, this was not the case with either of the two links I've just removed, but if anyone feels differently please elaborate. DoubleGrazing (talk) 11:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links to commercial service providers 

message: The first set of company accounts I submitted ignored IR35, because I was unaware of it.  When I discovered this legislation, I attempted to discover what it meant.  When I directed very specific questions to the IR35 Helpline, I was sent an email which contained what I believe was a standard advice document.  In the document it was stated that if a company and HMRC could not explicitly agree IR35 status of relevant contracts (in advance of submitting a tax return), then the company was entitled to pursue a formal adjudication on status from HMRC.  The legal underpinning of the adjudication arose from the fact that the National Insurance side of IR35 involves the company acting as Class-1 NI tax collector.  The role of NI tax collector has always (and must always) depend on availability of a judicial process to resolve disputes over common-law employment status.  When IR35 started, the relevant NI regulations were amended to make clear that the normal judicial process for resolving status uncertainty was extended to include the 'hypothetical status' which is the crux of IR35.
If a limited company (PSC) does not want to risk making a wrong assessment of IR35, statute provides a process that if pursued to the end will ultimately provide a judicial adjudication.  However, this 'due process' is not advertised, and I found that when I tried to pursue it, HMRC staff would not acknowledge that it existed.  I told HMRC staff that I would not guess my tax return, and therefore I would not submit the limited company return until HMRC provided access to the statutory process for establishing pre-return IR35 status of the companies relevant contracts.
HMRC staff were willing to provide IR35 opinions, but I explained to these staff that HMRC would be legally bound by a pre-return IR35 DECISION, but were not legally bound to stick to any IR35 OPINION that staff might offer.  In the event, I had two opinions from HMRC staff.  The first opinion said that the contracts were outside IR35 (as long as the engager would confirm the facts I had provided).  The later opinion said that the same contracts were inside IR35.  For me, this chaos of opinion justified my intransigence in refusing to submit tax returns until HMRC made formal IR35 status decisions regarding the various relevant contracts.
HMRC, after a seven year stand-off (which included me getting my MP involved), let me close the limited company down without the tax situation being resolved.  I reckon they wasted 2000 hours of my time (including time wasted reading the IR35 Forum minutes); and they gave up their right to collect a certain of amount of tax that would have been properly due (on the basis that all the contracts in question were in effect 'disguised' self-employment contracts, concluded directly between my wife, who was the contracting worker, and the end-clients).
82.32.5.128 (talk) 09:49, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal experience of challenging HMRC over a limited company's obligation to prepare and submit accurate 'IR35-aware' accounts