BN66 - the road to Judicial Review

[seadog]

Hello,

I have now sent in my latest 4 page letter (asking Stephen Timms many pertinent questions regarding both my personal situation and the general BN66 issues), and his dismissive reply to the JCHR. Hopefully they will have more luck getting answers out of him than I did.

Have a great weekend everyone.

MajorGowen...

Hello major

Can you PM your letter and questions to DR so we see if it contains the same as we have been asking or if there is some new ones we have not thought about.

Eventually we need to get a standard list of questions that Timms has not answered and see if we can get a fromal inquiry to get them answered.

[seadog]

Signed......

I'm currently working with a large bunch of contractors, 99% of whom are operating 'outside' of IR35 using a range of 'solutions'. I'm sure they would all love to rush to add their signatures to the petition but I do have some difficulty persuading them (and that includes getting them behind the whole retro debate) that their names are not immediately flagged up in the Treasury/Revenue avoidance database. Anyone seeing the same from colleagues....?

Can you persuade them to join the deabte on this forum

[malvolio]

As one of the few property developers on the forum IR35 does not affect me but can I suggest rather thaan trying to just get it repealed you argue for an alternative tax regime whcih takes account of your special circumstances which makes you different from permies.

Iy you agreed to a rate say 25% that would show some cooperation and recognise the point whcih HMRC are trying to make.

Change rather than repeal would seem like a much more achievable objective.

Just a thought

PS have also signed the petiton

You may be right, but we won't start from the position of accepting the need for IR35. Change so it only applies where your client is the same as your immedaitely previus permanent employer, then it may have a point, otherwise it should go.

However MyCo is a perfectly legal, tax-paying (well, when it's earning...) small business. I need money to pay for bench time and assorted things that permies don't have to pay for, like PCs and software as well as assorted insurances and expenses. My net income (again, when I have one) is somewhere around the same as a permie manager working at my level. Why, then, should I have to suffer a specific tax regime to make me pay more than my self-employed neighbour who grosses around the same as I do? What would be the justification, bearing in mind that the gross taxes paid by most contractors' businesses between CT and PAYE/NICs is already rather more than most permies pay?

The only option is to lose S44-7 and allow us to work as Schedule D self employeds. That would certainly work for me. What I won't support is any idea that a small segment of highly valuable workers should be punitively taxed simply becuase some deranged left-wing failed tax evader was too stupid to understand why we incorporate in the first place.


PS You're wating your time...

[helen7]

off topic

Any chance we can move the IR35 discussion to another thread and keep this one just for BN66 news?

[malvolio]

Happy to do so, but the point at issue is how to change HMG's mind, not specific bits of legislation.

[silver_lining]

Tory awareness...

Are the Tories aware or moreover do they actually belief the potential number of votes at stake for the various bits of legislation we are discussing?

Has anybody who is a member a member of the Tory party or otherwise wrote to senior Tories to try and have the debate/ discussion. I personally see the petition as useful in so far as it can demonstrate hard proof of the number of people in the IT community who will vote on these matters. For this reason I don't see both IR35 petition and our cause as mutually exclusive. From a personal perspective, I would be happy if BN66 retroactivity was repealed, but turn all stones on the road to Rome in the process.

Plus a plan B in the face of JR miscarriage is a good idea.

I also feel bodies like PCG could put their weight behind both issues in a two pronged initiative to persuade the imminent government to repeal or even just not enforce....

[centurian]

And, hopefully, this is where the buggers will come unstuck.

They would have stood a better chance of testing retrospection if they'd targeted the likes of the banks or a bunch of fat cats

Ah, but they have 1000s times more resources to defend it. They'd end up convincing the court that the government should give them more money plus a second Knighthood and expenses (a BlackAdder 4 sketch comes to mind here - but I digress).

How much money are we talking about. Is it about 2,000 being "hit" for it. Assuming 50K per person with interest and penalties, that's 100million though, which is fair amount. Not sure government costs will go that high.

[malvolio]

Based on how many clients Parasol and friends have, I make it around 40k contractors either using umbrellas or "volunteering" to be IR35 caught out of cowardice or ignorance. The "take" is the difference between their PAYE/NICS and what it would be it they wre running LtdCos with a sensible (not extreme) pay/dividends ratio, and using some very generous estimates the most I can get to is £430m - a big number but actually trivial in national terms.

PCG is attacking the issue (and has been for a while) using voting numbners. Surveys show that 91% of 18.500 members will vote for the party that promises to repeal IR35 - there's one load of votes. I would guess that would extend to the non-membership world as well; given the PCG is around 10% of the whole, perhaps 250k votes are up for grabs, and roughly half of them in the South East.

[Toocan]

I think this discussion on IR35 misses a rather important point. It was the civil service (HMRC) that wanted IR35. They wanted it in Thatcher’s time but she wouldn’t let them do it. Major would not allow it either. Blair+Brown were too greedy or stupid to say no.

UK plc’s finances are in a real mess and the government are going to have to use every means at their disposal to collect enough tax to make up for The Labour party’s mess.

Add this to the fact that people now move from Employment to Umbrella, and that IR35 has been a disaster. There are now more tax loopholes than ever.

I think IR35 may be repealed but I fear that it will be replaced with something else. That is the real danger. What if the “replacement” is worse than the current situation? IR35 catches almost no one – HMRC have had 10 years to think up something even more dastardly.

Is it better the devil you know?

We need commitments from these politicians.

[BrilloPad]

Any chance we can move the IR35 discussion to another thread and keep this one just for BN66 news?

I agree with helen. I know not much going on bn66 : but if this keeps going off topic people are just going to stop reading.