IR35 insurance

[ratewhore]

My FO35 is up for renewal soon. I wondered if anyone has any recommendations on insurance for the relevant investigations?

[Rebecca Loos]

Qdos I think have a decent one

[malvolio]

Join the PCG. All the cover you need (as opposed to all you want!) for around £200 pa

[lawspeed]

IR35 'Tax-Safe' Insurance

We provide IR35 advice and contract negotiation. Engagements that we approve as outside IR35 are eligible for 'IR35 Tax-Safe' cover from Abbey Tax Protection (ATP). This is the same insurer as provides the PEI or 'PCGPlus' insurance through the PCG but this higher level of cover underwrites the actual additional IR35 tax, NIC's, interest and penalties, not just the costs of representation.

To be eligible for this level of cover, ATP requires Lawspeed's approval that the relevant engagements are outside the scope of IR35 in our opinion.

[ratewhore]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not really a big fan of IR35 contract reviews as opinions can differ between HMCR and the reviewer. Also, while the Lawspeed option sounds interesting, I could potentially be out of pocket for the cost of the contract review if it fails and I can't get your insurance on it. Then I will be back to where I am now...

QDOS could be the winner here, they are involved with the FO35 product anyway so better the devil you know?

Cheers all.

[malvolio]

Assuming you're actually serious for a moment...

Surely the whole point of a review is that it might disagree with HMRC - it wouldn't be a lot of point otherwise and I do not imagine for one minute that any of our contracts, including the excellent Lawspeed one I'm using, would be passed by Hector as outside IR35. You want a legal view of the contract and a measure of how defensible it is, don't you?

Laspweed are a very high quality company and will not easily fail a contract. Even if they do, it is not beyond the wit of man to get get changes made - unless you're dealing with one of the Ajilon companies.

QDOS insure one contract at a time. Since Hector can chase up to six years back, how many contracts do you want covering? When do you let the cover lapse? It's also worth noting that PCG now use ATP rather than QDOS since the insurance is significantly better.

So I repeat - join the PCG. Same contract as Lawspeed and no reviews necessary. You are covered for all concurrent or sequential contracts for a little over £200 a year. Is that not what you want?

[ratewhore]

Good considered reply Malvolio, thanks for that.

My personal opinion is that, if I was to have a contract review, I would want to be told in certain terms that it was inside or outside. The reality as I see it is that you can have 2 members of HMRC with different opinions, nevermind HMRC and a legal firm. So I personally question the value in it.

I'll definitely check out the PCG though. Thanks for that...

[Lucifer Box]

Good considered reply Malvolio, thanks for that.

My personal opinion is that, if I was to have a contract review, I would want to be told in certain terms that it was inside or outside. The reality as I see it is that you can have 2 members of HMRC with different opinions, nevermind HMRC and a legal firm. So I personally question the value in it.

I'll definitely check out the PCG though. Thanks for that...

Thing is, it's the working practices that count if you end up being challenged by HMCR and for that you need a client who isn't going to drop you in in by saying "yeah, he works nine to five every day and does whatever I tell him to". A contract review is by definition indicative only.

[malvolio]

Precisely - but you may as well start with as many bases loaded as possible! And remember more than a few cases have been won on the basis of things like substitution clauses that weren't even invoked.

[handsfree]

CoA's

Malvolio

Do you think it's worth trying to get clients to agree to sign a 'Confirmation of Arrangements' (CoA)?

Have you ever used the PCG's template for this?

In my experience, most line or technical managers don't want to put their names to anything in case it gets them in trouble later.