Results of the public sector consultation is up

[difficulttimes]

I'm unsure of that advice. The question is could the tax investigation insurance cope with a surge of new cases? If (as some people fear) contracts deemed inside in April are all investigated I suspect that will be a lot of cases...

Hence I'm not sure an insurance scheme costing 1-3% of the possible tax due is going to cope with the potential demand for their services / money...

I do find this highly unlikely as where are these so called resources coming from as each case is investigated individually so you can't just do a blanket investigation as they did with loan schemes etc. They would have to bring on hundreds if not thousands of extra people in a time when they are cutting staff.

Further advice to the above, if you are unsure then get a working practices questionnaire counter signed by the Director etc. and that with your contract which I assume would have been reviewed by your insurers would suffice.

The best piece of advice is to get out as soon as you can and be careful what you read on here.

[teapot418]

Thanks Teapot... do u mean April 6th? So as long as the payment is made before then in theory it's all OK... I ask as they run a weekly payroll

"Subject to Parliamentary approval and Royal Assent the measure will introduce Off-payroll working in the public sector legislation applying to payments made on or after 6 April 2017. The measure applies to contracts entered into before that date. If work is completed before 6 April 2017 but payment made on or after 6 April 2017 it will be within the new legislation."

[northernladuk]

Thanks.

How I am in the cr8p is we haven't reached April yet???

Because every PS contractor that doesn't know yet and people like yourself who are waiting until the very last minute are all going to be having to make a decision at the same time. IMO the decision is to go PS to avoid a 30% cut income and get away from all the unknown. That means everyone of you will be looking for the same gigs at the same time and it's hardly a great time to find gigs at the best of times.

[northernladuk]

I can't get how many people we are getting that are resigned to staying in the PS. What happened to proper contractors. Looks like the government might actually have been on to something here......

[eek]

I do find this highly unlikely as where are these so called resources coming from as each case is investigated individually so you can't just do a blanket investigation as they did with loan schemes etc. They would have to bring on hundreds if not thousands of extra people in a time when they are cutting staff.

Further advice to the above, if you are unsure then get a working practices questionnaire counter signed by the Director etc. and that with your contract which I assume would have been reviewed by your insurers would suffice.

The best piece of advice is to get out as soon as you can and be careful what you read on here.

They don't need to do a blanket investigation - all they need to do to kick it off is to write a letter stating we believe this contract that you started on x/y/15 and was deemed inside IR35 on 7/4/17 was always inside IR35 and our records show (via the agency reporting regulations) that you have received £x,000 over the cause of this contract that should have been treated as inside IR35...

Now imagine HMRC send 1,000s of letters like that and think how many people are not going to have a clue how to respond to it and are just going to give in and pay...

[eek]

I can't get how many people we are getting that are resigned to staying in the PS. What happened to proper contractors. Looks like the government might actually have been on to something here......

They were. Interestingly DWP have adopted the approach of other departments and as they TUPE back a pile of workers from HP and elsewhere are not bringing them back into DWP but rather to a separate private (albeit wholly owned by DWP) company...

[cojak]

The best piece of advice is to get out as soon as you can and be careful what you read on here.

I completely agree with both sentiments. People are coming here looking for cut and dried answers to questions that have no answers yet.

We have been looking at this for 18 months and putting information out when we get it.

Ultimately each person needs to make a decision based on facts (thin on the ground atm) vs balance of probabilities vs their risk profile.

[eek]

I completely agree with both sentiments. People are coming here looking for cut and dried answers to questions that have no answers yet.

We have been looking at this for 18 months and putting information out when we get it.

Ultimately each person needs to make a decision based on facts (thin on the ground atm) vs balance of probabilities vs their risk profile.

Agreed - the only thing that has changed (and to be frank would scare me if I wasn't already safely out) is how scared the people I meet down the pub were... Hence while I did (up to Tuesday) think the probability of them going retrospective was 50-50 its probably more like a 90% chance that they are going to push this - after all exactly why else have they got the agency reporting regulations for (they still can't answer the FOI questions I ask which should be available from that system)...

[difficulttimes]

They don't need to do a blanket investigation - all they need to do to kick it off is to write a letter stating we believe this contract that you started on x/y/15 and was deemed inside IR35 on 7/4/17 was always inside IR35 and our records show (via the agency reporting regulations) that you have received £x,000 over the cause of this contract that should have been treated as inside IR35...

Now imagine HMRC send 1,000s of letters like that and think how many people are not going to have a clue how to respond to it and are just going to give in and pay...

I do agree that you maybe at a higher risk with the situation you mention above but each one of the cases will need to be taken to a tribunal if it even gets that far and there are no APNs to get money up front and many of these people will have insurance. Its a cost v reward for HMRC and to this point the IR35 investigations are very sporadic with no real pattern why they choose certain people. Also, with any IR35 investigation the end client is going to be involved as well so not sure they want to be pulling their departmental buddies into a tribunal.

Plus you will be getting new contracts and working practices in theory so the contractor could make the point that their situation has changed.
TBH, I think 95% will walk anyway and if they choose to stay in the PS then will take a different contract somewhere else in the PS.
Also, I think the tribunals will be full of people trying to claim employment rights for being deemed inside IR35.

[jamesbrown]

I do agree that you maybe at a higher risk with the situation you mention above but each one of the cases will need to be taken to a tribunal

FWIW, I was originally of your opinion that this was forward looking, primarily, and for exactly the same reasons, but eek makes a couple of good points. First, that many cases may be settled without a tribunal (based on fear, ignorance, and the upfront costs, if you don't have tax investigation insurance). Also, if the volume of demands is large, many of those with scant knowledge of IR35 will make fatal mistakes in the early stages of an inquiry by responding themselves, without professional assistance. In short, they could take a lot of tax (wrongly, in most cases) without a tribunal. Second, eek has inside knowledge.