Plumber wins employment rights

[Mordac]

Do KUATB

I tend not to look in Acc/Legal much these days, it's way too depressing...

[Rabotnik]

No he was self employed if he is found to be employed then the company employing is responsible for paying the tax. There is case law for this.

That is why IT agencies only use Ltd company contractors.

Today I learned the difference between a LTD company and self-employed

[northernladuk]

If only he'd asked on here...NLUK would have set him straight.

Word!

[barrydidit]

Quoting from the BBC article, I'd like to know how this ruling was formed if he was "technically" self-employed. "Technically", he doesn't sound very self-employed at all. I'm not sure branding is necessarily a deciding factor, but more the fact that he had pretty much no control over when he works. I'm guessing he was also not allowed to work for other plumbing firms or take on his own customers directly either.

Just how much employer's NIC has Mr Mullins got away with not paying all these years?

According to R4 this morning:
- he was expected to work 5 days a week
- he could do as he liked the rest of the time
- he couldn't poach PP customers to do his own work for
- he wasn't permitted to send in a substitute
- it was company policy that a uniform is worn (by all whether employed or not)
- he had the choice of being employed or self employed

There was no mention of him picking and choosing his jobs - I reckoned he was caught on D&C and RoS - probably, after 6 years, he was screwed all round IR35-wise.

[northernladuk]

I tend not to look in Acc/Legal much these days, it's way too depressing...

Lol well there is that yes.

[rl4engc]

Y

You are presuming that those who are self-employed but working for one company for years, want to be self-employed.

There's a two tier system in play; Proper contractors who realised long ago all that permiedom was a load of tulip and so want to be self employed (Let's call these Tier 1). And the Uber drivers and window fitters etc. who by-and-large want the "Security" of a perm job, sick pay etc. (stop tittering at the back). (Tier 2).

My Prediction: A new generation of Agents/Accountants working together with employers to encourage (read coerce/force) the Tier 2 workers above into Limited Co working.

[Halo Jones]

just to be pedantic he was actually a sparky

But this ruling, along with the one that says your day starts when you leave home, not arrive at site, will have major impact on the construction industry.

Interesting times ahead.

[chopper]

His solicitor has said

"The government really needs to look at this, It's really hitting people at the bottom"

I'm not sure many people would consider an £80k a year plumber 'at the bottom'.

The arguments though aren't comparable to the PS stuff yet, because in the case of contractors in the PS, the expectation is that you pay full permie tax and NI without the benefits of being an employee. In this case, he argued for employee rights without having had to pay full tax and NI.

(OK, if he was really self-employed, then he would have paid full tax, but nowhere near the right NI).

[original PM]

I think the fact that he was not allowed to work for anyone else speaks volumes about the actual terms he was working under as opposed to the terms specified in the paperwork.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

There was no mention of him picking and choosing his jobs - I reckoned he was caught on D&C and RoS - probably, after 6 years, he was screwed all round IR35-wise.

If he was self-employed then IR35 is irrelevant, though the tests for employment vs self-employment are broadly the same and based on the same case law AFAIK. It won't be him picking up the tab for unpaid employers NIC if HMRC decides to pursue this further.