Dragonfly

[The Lone Gunman]

In their eyes it is perfectly justified: (to them) what you are doing is deliberately using the wrong status, which lets you keep more of the tax that you should be paying, admittedly at the cost of throwing away hard-won benefits. So it's only poetic justice that you get knocked back on the wrong tax gain, without getting the benefits that you so deviously rejected.

Gotcha!

The problem is that I base my status on the ONLY evidence I have to hand, my own contract. The real situation does not become apparent for quite some time and if I never need a sub then I will never know that either. I may even think that the reality is somewhat different to the client if they are ever asked in court. What I consider to be professional reporting of project progress and courtesy to the client could be construed by them and the courts as control and supervision.

[DaveB]

There has been a reticence from the PCG on this one, advice has been not to use the nuclear option. I think the only lost IR35 case where it was obvious that the client and/or agent had lied was the Arctic case and the chap who owned the company was in no fit state to face another legal battle.

Artic wasn't IR35 it was S660 and was won in the Lords. Don't know which IR35 case you are thinking of.

EDIT : What Mal said, hadn't read all the way down.

[The Lone Gunman]

Artic wasn't IR35 it was S660 and was won in the Lords. Don't know which IR35 case you are thinking of.

EDIT : What Mal said, hadn't read all the way down.

Couldn't remember. Mal has chipped in. I knew there was one.
I knew Arctic was a 660, don't know why I used it.

[schindler]

You can pay that early and get interest back from the government.

what ROI does HMRC pay for payments received before the due date?

[The Lone Gunman]

what ROI does HMRC pay for payments received before the due date?

Not a lot. To stop people using them as an investment bank.

[DaveB]

what ROI does HMRC pay for payments received before the due date?

5% the last time I looked.

[original PM]

I think IR35 was originally bought out to stop a trend that meant a lot of IT managers and consultants were leaving work as an employee on Friday and returning to work on Monday to the same desk doing the same job but as a Ltd company with all of the tax savings this offered.

So when you say IR35 is to costly to maintain it is not because it has stopped this trend which is a saving to the government - you cannot judge how much this has saved the government becuase there are no figures on who was going to do it but did not.

The main cost of managing IR35 is the chancers who run a ltd company to avoid tax with a contract which bears no resemblance to reality.

[DaveB]

I think IR35 was originally bought out to stop a trend that meant a lot of IT managers and consultants were leaving work as an employee on Friday and returning to work on Monday to the same desk doing the same job but as a Ltd company with all of the tax savings this offered.

So when you say IR35 is to costly to maintain it is not because it has stopped this trend which is a saving to the government - you cannot judge how much this has saved the government becuase there are no figures on who was going to do it but did not.

The main cost of managing IR35 is the chancers who run a ltd company to avoid tax with a contract which bears no resemblance to reality.

edit: deleted cos I was talking bollox again......

[original PM]

that may be so DaveB

but the working time regulations of 1998 effectively put paid to that side of things.

I am pretty sure the IR35 ruling was to stop the high end earners taking the mick and not the lower end of the scale having the mick taken.

[malvolio]

that may be so DaveB

but the working time regulations of 1998 effectively put paid to that side of things.

I am pretty sure the IR35 ruling was to stop the high end earners taking the mick and not the lower end of the scale having the mick taken.

WTR is irrelevant, they only apply to employees, who can opt out of them anyway. They do not apply to officers of companies.

IR35 was to stop the Friday to Monday people. It was never going to be effective, which is why the Tories killed it for several years; it only came in with Gay Gorgon and his minions, who believed what HMRC were telling them. It then got all mixed up with the S660a nonsense, so now NL believe we have companies to avoid tax, not companies becuase that's the only way we can work.

Also, MyCo predates IR35 by several years, so why is it relevant to me? I didn't do a Friday to Monday I started up a whole new business.

They don't keep any figures on it - Dim Prawn (no that one, the real one) said so in the HoC once - so they can't now cost justify it. Best estimate is that it brings in around £250m a year, which is peanuts.