Staying in the same public sector contract after April 2017

[seeourbee]

Just seen that petition. Won't go anywhere, very poorly worded.

[difficulttimes]

Some of the questions

So I came across this article/blog on Linkedin of someone who has seen the tool which I thought would be interesting to share snippets...

The first 12 questions relate to PSC company structure, and ask repeatedly whether the worker and their family own or control more than 5% of the company, and whether they can take more than 5% of any dividends, or assets if the company was wound up. The answers to all these questions for PSC operators is going to be yes, as most contractors own 100% of their business, or at least a controlling half if it is split with family members.

I wonder here how the contractor is able to answer these prior to taking the appointment? Or will there be some sort of pre-application questionnaire..

[I]Question 15 asks whether the worker holds office for the end client, and of all the 55 questions, I suspect this one has the greatest weighting, in that a “yes” answer would generate an automatic in scope result.[/I]

There are a number of questions about substitution and sub contracting, which has always been one of the mainstays of IR35 determination, and should be properly covered off by most PSCs by having the correct wording in their contracts.

But the test also majors on supervision, direction and control, asking questions such as:

“Does the worker get to decide which tasks they do each day for this contract?”

“Can the client tell this person how to do the work for the contract?”

“When does the worker have to do the work for this contract?”

“Can the worker choose where to work during this contract?”

Interestingly, in amongst these questions HMRC provide an example of a painter and decorator who is commissioned to paint the third floor of a public sector organisation’s office block. The narrative around this example is intended to help the user understand how to answer the question, but I think it is revealing.

[I]The HMRC interpretation of supervision, direction and control looks to be a pretty stiff test.[/I]

There are a further series of questions relating to payment based on client satisfaction. In the world of management consulting, disputes of payment dependent on quality of work performed are more common. But interims may have to accept the added risk of having such a contractual clause, in order to provide the satisfactory answers on these questions.

[I]The final questions are more straightforward, this is where most interims will be providing the right answers, or they can make the tweaks and changes to their PSC to provide the right answers, i.e.

“Is their business registered for VAT?”

“Do they have a business bank account?”

“Do they pay for training?”

“Do they have a website?”[/I]

But even though the final straight of the test might be slightly downhill, the user won’t know what impact positive answers to these final questions will have on their overall result until we see the final model and have a sense of the underlying weightings.

So the upshot of all of this is I still can't see how the end client is able to answer the majority of these questions without the appoint able contractor in the room as everyone's working practices will be different.

Maybe the SD&C component they should be able to answer

I leave you with this quote which is spot on..

ContractorCalculator has suggested that the topic of IR35 is by no means binary, with complex case law, and the design of a model which would fairly give an in / out result without considering the specifics of each contractor’s case is nigh on impossible.

[northernladuk]

I've got a deja vu from the BET days. Fancy linking the article so everyone can read it?

[difficulttimes]

I've got a deja vu from the BET days. Fancy linking the article so everyone can read it?

Sorry wasn't sure that was allowed or not on CUK Forum

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hmrcs...-title-comment

[RonBW]

The questions are still changing from one day / week to the next - so what they saw is unlikely to be the final version.

[eek]

So I came across this article/blog on Linkedin of someone who has seen the tool which I thought would be interesting to share snippets...

The thing to remember is that HMRC really want the criteria to be just based on SDC as that is where they win points. They then lose on substitution and mutual obligation which they regard as hardly used and unjust (especially as the lack of Mutual Obligation is identical to a PAYE zero hours contract).

As for the article it seems he is looking at the GitHub repository which doesn't actually give you sensible results at the moment. The answers seem to be designed to test the front end more than the decision tree - and I'm not even sure the questions are the final ones.

[difficulttimes]

The questions are still changing from one day / week to the next - so what they saw is unlikely to be the final version.

Could be wrong but not sure the 55 questions are changing it is more the weighting of them that is probably being tinkered with to ensure HMRC always win!!
When someone does it will be bit like when someone finally cracked the code on Nintendo to jump levels on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.. that was a great day!

[RonBW]

Could be wrong but not sure the 55 questions are changing it is more the weighting of them that is probably being tinkered with to ensure HMRC always win!!

The voice in the pub tells me that the questions are still changing.

[difficulttimes]

The voice in the pub tells me that the questions are still changing.

Good to know... make sure you keep on going to the pub then!

[SueEllen]

Good to know... make sure you keep on going to the pub then!

And keep buying them drinks.