IR35 and being contracted by a consultancy on their client site.

[northernladuk]

OK am pretty au fait in general with IR35, my contract and the working conditions of my client. What happens when your client is a consultancy and you work at your clients client (call them the customer for the sake of argument).

I have two scenarios in mind which might make a difference.

A) You have to attend you clients office once in awhile and you cannot be controlled by your client so you come in at whatever time, don't use his expenses yadda yadda but when you are on the customers site am I right in thinking it is ok to to be direct by the customer? He is not my client and I am just adhering to his requirements out of professional courtesy to my client i.e is acting like a permie of my client to my customer and IR35 issue. I think am thinking not.

B) You never attend client offices and are based at the customers. In this case you must act like a contractor and not be controlled as it is the only way you can prove you are out of IR35 or is the fact you are not controlled by your client and use his processes (you are using his customers) mean IR 35 is a non issue as you cannot be proven to be inside (due to complete lack of control by my client)

How deep does IR35 go. Does it apply to your clients clients as well?

Thoughts anyone?

[SueEllen]

OK am pretty au fait in general with IR35, my contract and the working conditions of my client. What happens when your client is a consultancy and you work at your clients client (call them the customer for the sake of argument).

I have two scenarios in mind which might make a difference.

A) You have to attend you clients office once in awhile and you cannot be controlled by your client so you come in at whatever time, don't use his expenses yadda yadda but when you are on the customers site am I right in thinking it is ok to to be direct by the customer? He is not my client and I am just adhering to his requirements out of professional courtesy to my client i.e is acting like a permie of my client to my customer and IR35 issue. I think am thinking not.

It's not professional courtesy that you are turning up at a certain time it's business sense.

There is no point turning up at noon if you have to work closely with or have regular interaction with the customer who starts at 9am to complete the project.

B) You never attend client offices and are based at the customers. In this case you must act like a contractor and not be controlled as it is the only way you can prove you are out of IR35 or is the fact you are not controlled by your client and use his processes (you are using his customers) mean IR 35 is a non issue as you cannot be proven to be inside (due to complete lack of control by my client)

Does the customer have fixed hours?

When I've been in that situation the customer doesn't and I just do what I normally do which is change my hours to suit the permies I'm working with. If I'm not having to work with anyone then due to commuting and congestion it tends to happen that everyone turns up at the same time anyway.

How deep does IR35 go. Does it apply to your clients clients as well?

Thoughts anyone?

HMRC seem to interpret the rules anyway they like so yes it could apply to the client's customers as well.

However you need to remember that just because you work certain hours, use the client's equipment and follow some rules/regulations doesn't mean you fall under IR35. As some of this could be done for business reasons, some of this could be done for security and some of this could be due to Health and Safety.