IR35 - Guilty as charged! - Updated May 2016 - NOT GUILTY!

[jmo21]

Ah interesting. I thought refusal would be almost an admission so they come harder. Thanks for the info.

Are you cut ou.... ah forget it!

[Batcher]

Never meet them and don't let them into your office. Pass any mail from them to your advisors who will ask HMRC to send any questions in writing to them ahead of any meeting at your advisor's office.

There was some anecdotes in the old days that HMRC would turn up at the office unannounced. They would ask your wife/husband/company secretary some questions about when they could meet you, etc. If your wife/husband/company secretary said something along the lines of you were working at clientco at the moment, HMRC would use the wording as an admission that you were a disguised employee.

I'm not sure if there was any truth in it but my company secretary was always primed to say as little as possible but, if pushed, say I was out of the office that day visiting a client. I never did receive a visit from them though.

[northernladuk]

Are you cut ou.... ah forget it!

Ahh.. thing is I AM cut out to be a contractor which is why I don't have any and am unlikely to require any hands on knowledge of IR35

[Munchers]

I hope it works out for you.

In the interests of forewarned is forearmed, are you able/prepared to share those questions?

I would be prepared to share the questions but I'm uncomfortable posting them online in a forum that HMRC appear to monitor when I'm still in process of answering them. If you can suggest something more private from which you can use without exposing my position....

[Munchers]

Sorry for sounding negative but not meeting them and having to do the questions isn't going to help is it? There is some negotiation and argument in a discussion. A box ticking exercise is going to be pretty black and white and if they don't like the answer you are going to have spend an age trying to prove it. Look at the BET's for example. Nearly every contractor falls in to a high risk area doing them. Wouldn't meeting them have been more favourable or did you take professional advice?

All the advice we received said do not meet them but ask for them to put their questions in writing.

[Munchers]

Professional advice is never to do a face-to-face. Everything in writing, preferably through a third party and with expert advice on how to answer the questions, which has to be done.

This was the advice we received and how we are dealing with it.

[tvr450]

Interesting

This discussion was very interesting. Seems that my PCG+ membership was the right thing to do.

Please let us know how this all ends, fascinating to hear how HMRC deal with these sort of cases.

[Munchers]

Outcome

An old thread but at last an update.

After 3 years HMRC finally decided not to pursue this anymore. Exhausted.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for the advice and support all those years ago.

[ShandyDrinker]

An old thread but at last an update.

After 3 years HMRC finally decided not to pursue this anymore. Exhausted.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for the advice and support all those years ago.

Sounds good. Any additional information you can provide about what happened since the last update in 2014 would be good...

[Munchers]

Follow Up

Key points from my perspective.

We had insurance for IR35 - this was appalling at first so we moved to another advisor and paid direct. This was worse, expensive and offered appalling advice. We were persuaded to return to original advisors (our Accountants threatened to cancel contract with them unless they appeased us). This proved to be the right decision and advice, guidance & support was absolutely brilliant - shame about the first advisor. The point, if you are not happy with the service, complain. Don't just take rubbish and excuses.

HMRC set a questionnaire for the business to complete - this was 60+ questions. A lot of the questions asked for information we were not legally required to provide, although this wasn't made clear by HMRC. The information would also have potentially compromised our claim.

HMRC made lots of mistakes and delayed the process repeatedly, always inferring it was our problem. Don't accept this, challenge everything and point out every mistake however small. We were advised that usually a junior officer will fact find before passing the case on for decision, so make it uncomfortable for them by showing their errors etc as they don't like to promote their own incompetence.

There is so much else I could add - be prepared, listen to advice, don't take poor service from anyone and fight.