Intermediaries Legislation - questionairre from agency

[psychocandy]

Hmmm. Never mind answering these sort of things but some of the questions on it, are to be honest, a bit out of the ordinary and none of their business.

Also, not impressed that they're saying "unless you fill in this form we'll be unable to pay you". Umm yes you will!

Anyway, what do you reckon on the following?

A) Please confirm 100% of your income you earn on assignment is paid to you by your contracting entity.

Umm. None of your business how its structured. And no part of the income goes on dividends to the shareholders.

B) Did you take accountancy advice before you commenced contracting?
None of your business

C) You or your spouse are the only shareholders in your company?
True in my case but again none of your business. I can add whatever shareholders I like.

[tractor]

...

Hmmm. Never mind answering these sort of things but some of the questions on it, are to be honest, a bit out of the ordinary and none of their business.

Also, not impressed that they're saying "unless you fill in this form we'll be unable to pay you". Umm yes you will!

Anyway, what do you reckon on the following?

A) Please confirm 100% of your income you earn on assignment is paid to you by your contracting entity.

Umm. None of your business how its structured. And no part of the income goes on dividends to the shareholders.

B) Did you take accountancy advice before you commenced contracting?
None of your business

C) You or your spouse are the only shareholders in your company?
True in my case but again none of your business. I can add whatever shareholders I like.

Many agents are using the same template tosh that I suspect is distributed by REC/ATSCO which is designed purely to extricate their agents from any responsibility for anything in the history of the world. Most of it is completely irrelevant as it protects them from the perceived loophole around disguised self-employment in that if you as a contractor pay yourself as a self employed person or engage a self employed person to perform work on your behalf to your client, they can get away with paying the tax that they should.

If you never engage self employed persons, it will never become an issue. They could save themselves a lot of money and us a lot of hassle if they included a clause in the contract that prevents you engaging self employed persons on a particular contract.

It is clear that neither the agents professional bodies, the agents themselves and certainly HR depts in general do not have a clue how the relevant legislation works.

The last one that tried this with me also demanded my accountant fill in a questionnaire and wanted them to confirm that they do not deal with self employed full stop! Ridiculous as I am sure my accountant has employed, self employed and limited co clients in various measures and quite legitimately too.

[Louisa@InTouch]

There are a couple of questionnaires floating around at the moment, one in regards to Intermediaries Legislation, another on MSC providers.

As for the Intermediaries Legislation, you can see the template of requested information from HMRC that agencies need to provide below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...te.csv/preview

So, if they are asking questions outside of this template, you might want to question them!

As for this submission, the only details they need from you are;

- name
- date of birth
- gender
- NI number
- address
- to confirm your are a Limited company
- start and end dates of your engagement
- amount paid, currency and VAT confirmation
- company number

If they are asking for details on how your paid yourself or your UTR number, this should not be provided as part of the submission.

As you mention 'none of your business'.

However if this an MSC questionnaire, it's likely just to confirm that you are not operating through an MSC provider and this will not be submitted to HMRC.

[TheFaQQer]

A) Please confirm 100% of your income you earn on assignment is paid to you by your contracting entity.

Umm. None of your business how its structured. And no part of the income goes on dividends to the shareholders.

Read the question again - it actually asks whether you have another job. 100% of my income that I earn is paid to me by my contracting entity. It does NOT ask whether the company pays out 100% of the invoice amount to me.

B) Did you take accountancy advice before you commenced contracting?
None of your business

C) You or your spouse are the only shareholders in your company?
True in my case but again none of your business. I can add whatever shareholders I like.

What's your point, caller?

This sounds very Sopra Steria to me.

[tractor]

....

Read the question again - it actually asks whether you have another job. 100% of my income that I earn is paid to me by my contracting entity. It does NOT ask whether the company pays out 100% of the invoice amount to me.



What's your point, caller?

This sounds very Sopra Steria to me.

Those questions,word for word were asked of me at extension time by LaFosse last year. I refused point blank and they allowed the contract to lapse (it was only a 6 week extension) but their Director was insistent that lawyers were demanding the information so it was compulsory, or else!

[psychocandy]

Read the question again - it actually asks whether you have another job. 100% of my income that I earn is paid to me by my contracting entity. It does NOT ask whether the company pays out 100% of the invoice amount to me.



What's your point, caller?

This sounds very Sopra Steria to me.

Spot on.

[TheFaQQer]

Those questions,word for word were asked of me at extension time by LaFosse last year. I refused point blank and they allowed the contract to lapse (it was only a 6 week extension) but their Director was insistent that lawyers were demanding the information so it was compulsory, or else!

<off topic>I really cannot believe that there is an agency called La Fosse, bearing in mind what it means. Then again, maybe they are just realists</off topic>

[tractor]

...

<off topic>I really cannot believe that there is an agency called La Fosse, bearing in mind what it means. Then again, maybe they are just realists</off topic>

Your point has been mentioned before but contrarily, they were quite good until they provided me with this questionnaire. Even after I refused to comply and allowed the contract to end, all payments were made on time and there were no difficulties as a result.