Staying in the same public sector contract after April 2017

[northernladuk]

Well if we are trying to guess what will happen I think they will pick one poor sap and nail them hard. They will then have case law on their side expecting any insurance products to fold leaving everyone without a leg to stand on and then start the letters....

[malvolio]

Well if we are trying to guess what will happen I think they will pick one poor sap and nail them hard. They will then have case law on their side expecting any insurance products to fold leaving everyone without a leg to stand on and then start the letters....

Or someone gives the victim professional support and advice, takes the case to completion and establishes case law that IR35 does not apply.

I would think that is an equally likely outcome. All it needs is one contractor willing to take the battle to HMRC.

[RonBW]

Well if we are trying to guess what will happen I think they will pick one poor sap and nail them hard. They will then have case law on their side expecting any insurance products to fold leaving everyone without a leg to stand on and then start the letters....

Which brings the argument full circle - how will they pick this one poor sap without trying to investigate everyone? And what precedent is going to be set by one individual? If that was possible then everyone would have been caught by every win that HMRC have had over the years. But they haven't. HMRC still need to investigate everyone to get a win, or they hope that people will fold early because that brings in money, gives a statistic but still sets no precedent.

HMRC can lump loads of people together and say "give us your money" all they want, but without an investigation coming to fruition then they don't actually get that money. They cannot say "this guy is similar to that guy who we caught" and automatically win the next investigation - each one needs to be fought and won on it's merits.

Sure people might fold and give in (which is what HMRC want of course) but that doesn't mean that HMRC won't have to fight cases. And the moment they lose a few where the tool says inside and the tribunal says outside, the process starts to look utterly flawed.

[Fred Bloggs]

It is not about being caught it is about being investigated.

Not everyone has tax insurance so has experts to help them to fight this.

Undoubtedly true, SE. Much as I do not like what PCG has become and where it seems to be heading, membership is still a no brainer to fend off HMRC approaches. How long that holds true remains to be seen, most of us who think about things know that too.

[pjt]

The counter argument to that is that previously identifying ir35 cases for investigation has been time consuming, hard work and with little chance of success. Given that come April there is a data set of contractors where their client has deemed them inside when asked, it's highly possible that they will target that list.

The only unknown is how likely are they to do that and sadly I expect that it's a very high probability.

The next step after that is to think what the report would look like and personally I suspect it will be based on agency so the advice has to be if you are concerned and you have been in a contract a long time now would be a good time to take a break and move to a different agency which probably means a different client

The final thing to add is that all this is based on an obvious question being asked "if they are inside ir35 now surely they were before" and to be blunt I really cannot see how someone important isn't going to be asking that question at some point especially if chaos is occurring and they want to distract others.

And with that I'm probably out of here for a bit. 2 weeks in Austria doing my new day job.

eek, with this in mind do you think us who work direct may be less at risk from this retro tax grab?

[northernladuk]

eek, with this in mind do you think us who work direct may be less at risk from this retro tax grab?

I'd say no. It's about the contract and working conditions. A middleman is largely irrelevant to the that. The partial win with JLJ contract was direct.

[RonBW]

I'd say no. It's about the contract and working conditions. A middleman is largely irrelevant to the that. The partial win with JLJ contract was direct.

I think the question was more around how HMRC will construct this big list of people to target than whether you are inside or outside.

[northernladuk]

Undoubtedly true, SE. Much as I do not like what PCG has become and where it seems to be heading, membership is still a no brainer to fend off HMRC approaches. How long that holds true remains to be seen, most of us who think about things know that too.

Surely that horse has bolted? You can't be expected to be defended retrospectively and if the future landscape has more risk I'd expect the offering to change as well surely?

[Fred Bloggs]

eek, with this in mind do you think us who work direct may be less at risk from this retro tax grab?

Obviously, I cannot reply for eek, but I imagine it depends........... If you are engaged by a purchase order against a quotation that went to tender, with clear deliverables and invoices paid against the achievement of contract milestones then IMO, you're home and dry. If you turn up 5 days a week and sit there doing as you are told (likely 95% or more contractors in my experience do exactly that) then you're likely to fail, whether you are direct or not.

[RonBW]

Surely that horse has bolted? You can't be expected to be defended retrospectively and if the future landscape has more risk I'd expect the offering to change as well surely?

How many investigations relate to current contract and how many relate to previous contracts? I would wager that a significantly higher percentage of investigations relate to previous work than current.