Finance Bill 2019-20 draft legislation

[northernladuk]

I don't get what your point is.

I know I'm in a temp gig and not a perm job...

Because you say you are not worried about all this and then relate you reasons to the contract you are in. Once that one ends and you go back to market and there is nothing left, then you will be worried. It seems to a be either a very short termist view or a head in the sand because I'm all right jack comment.

This may not affect the contract you are in but will most certainly have an impact on the rest of your contracting career.

[NeedTheSunshine]

That is not just 'your view', it is manifestly the legal position as things stand.

It is also, in terms of both justice and politics, the weak link in HMRC's development of Gordon Brown's abomination. 'The company I'm contracting for decided I have to pay tax as an employee but won't give me holiday pay, sick pay, paternity pay, notice when they terminate the position, etc.'

Go tell that story in the pub and see how your mates respond. Tell it in the press and sentiment can turn on this pretty quickly. The disconnect between tax and employee rights is indeed current law but it is unjust. Contractors, with a few exceptions, have not pursued this line because they didn't want either the employee tax or the employee rights. HMRC have taken advantage of that, but I think they've now forced contractors to attack this weak point.

The people in the pub will probably just ask "why you don't become an employee then?"

[jk3838]

Any thoughts/comment on the reference to blanket determinations ?

“Applying a decision to a group of off-payroll workers with the same role, working practices and contractual conditions can be appropriate in some circumstances,” the government says on page 16 of its response.

Government publishes draft IR35 legislation for private sector off-payroll rules

[northernladuk]

Any thoughts/comment on the reference to blanket determinations ?

“Applying a decision to a group of off-payroll workers with the same role, working practices and contractual conditions can be appropriate in some circumstances,” the government says on page 16 of its response.

Government publishes draft IR35 legislation for private sector off-payroll rules

That is not a blanket determination. It's just doing a group of people. Blanket is the entire contracting community regardless of role.

[webberg]

To me it's simple all contracts and working practices are reviewed by an independent company (qdos etc) and insured to protect the client, total cost less than £500 a year. From the cases that have come to tribunal recently I can't see how many have much to worry about. Problem is we need clients to be on the ball which is unlikely based on the tulip show we see every day.

The rules in the FB and policy papers etc all say that the dispute process will start when a client decides that you are inside (or outside) and you disagree. There has to be a "client led" disagreement resolution process.

I'm imagining that this could be a very short process.

Client says "inside", you marshal your evidence, prepare an argument, perhaps pay a firm to support you with professional expertise and enter the room to be met with "do you want the job or not"?

It will be a brave outfit who takes on insuring the client. Yes HMRC has lost a number of cases but that will not continue. They are playing a long game and will squeeze harder if for nothing else to show end clients where they might be challenged.

[jk3838]

That is not a blanket determination. It's just doing a group of people. Blanket is the entire contracting community regardless of role.

yes but it isn't individual determination either, certain members of the 'group' may have different working practices to other members but be determined as a group

where I'm at, no two contractors behave in the same way with regards to working practices, some do fixed price while others are 'spoon fed' by all accounts, (and everything in between), but looks like a group determination could be seen as appropriate to those upstairs, who don't realize this, especially when guided by the wording on page 16

[webberg]

That is not a blanket determination. It's just doing a group of people. Blanket is the entire contracting community regardless of role.

Perhaps we need to be a little more precise about what "blanket" means.

The Civil Services (public sector) and many large similar organisations tend to have a rigid system of grading the jobs in their offices and then they fit people into those grades. So a grade 5 might be somebody who is an administrator, a buyer, a project manager, head of paperclips. The Civil Service don't distinguish.

The risk here is that a "blanket" decision is made that ALL grade 5's are inside. If the contractor role is deemed to be grade 5, then it's inside.

We have seen this happen.

Private sector is more diverse. The statements in the consultation (sic) response are addressing the issue of whether, for example, all jobs in a department or a business unit are inside. Perhaps the best example I have heard HMRC utter is that an IT helpdesk is manned with support workers who all do the same job and therefore if one is inside, all are inside.

I think therefore that blanket decisions are at that level and not the whole contracting community as even the flawed statistics in the "evidence" from HMRC sees at least 10% of current contractors being outside IR35 when the dust settles.

[sal]

Too many people seem to be clinging onto the idea that their skills are so unique and valuable that a big companies HR department will go out of their way to organise special working conditions and contracts for them.

No. Won't happen.

If you choose to only take 'outside 1r35' contracts; likelihood is that you have just reduced your client base by about 50-60%.

Hike your rate to compensate? Good luck - clients have strict rate cards; if you don't fit the range; you CV won't even reach the interviewers inbox; it will be rejected by the clerk in HR.

The pressure now should be on the payment of pension and holiday entitlements as part of contracts. The LTD company/dividends ship has now sailed folks.

My skills are not unique, but they are valuable, as they are mostly unavailable in the permie resource pool.

I don't know how long have you been contracting for, but doesn't seems to be long, if you think that HR has much to do with contractors procurement. The most involvement they have is to set you up in SAP etc. Sure there are some exceptions, but normally it's the hiring manager (usually a PM) who engages with the agencies and makes decisions on what kind of people he needs. All the PMs needs to say is that the current projects will be delayed by X months to the cost of Y (where Y is likely 10'000s and 100'000s) if they can't get the right people in and senior management will quickly spend several 10'000s on some consultancy by QDOS etc. to get it right.

One other major deferential is that permies are OPEX, where contractors are generally CAPEX, offering pensions and holiday entitlements will cause a shift, so I highly doubt they will come to live.

Generally (just like it happened in the PS body i worked for back in 2017) Umbrela contractors will happily accept "inside" determination, where ltd. contractors will either walk or fight for "outside"

[webberg]

if they can't get the right people in and senior management will quickly spend several 10'000s on some consultancy by QDOS etc. to get it right.

I disagree with the above.

I'm not maligning QDOS and from what I see they are a professional, careful and prudent organisation.

However, unless senior management is willing to make changes to the work required or the manner in which it is delivered or supervised - in other words make changes that are real and can be proven over the course of the contract - no amount of legal massaging can alter and inside/outside determination.

That decision is (or should be) based on FACTS and no legal contract will produce a magic wand to alter those. Rather it is the opposite. The FACTS on how a job is done should drive the contract.

If QDOS (and I'm sure there are others) can influence those FACTS - and for all I know they can and do - then great.

[sal]

Perhaps we need to be a little more precise about what "blanket" means.

The Civil Services (public sector) and many large similar organisations tend to have a rigid system of grading the jobs in their offices and then they fit people into those grades. So a grade 5 might be somebody who is an administrator, a buyer, a project manager, head of paperclips. The Civil Service don't distinguish.

The risk here is that a "blanket" decision is made that ALL grade 5's are inside. If the contractor role is deemed to be grade 5, then it's inside.

We have seen this happen.

Private sector is more diverse. The statements in the consultation (sic) response are addressing the issue of whether, for example, all jobs in a department or a business unit are inside. Perhaps the best example I have heard HMRC utter is that an IT helpdesk is manned with support workers who all do the same job and therefore if one is inside, all are inside.

I think therefore that blanket decisions are at that level and not the whole contracting community as even the flawed statistics in the "evidence" from HMRC sees at least 10% of current contractors being outside IR35 when the dust settles.

Blanket in this case is pretty clear - all contractors. Of course they are allowed to say that everyone who works in team X doing the same Y and having signed the same contract template is either IN or OUT.

I will give you an example, I was working for a PS body during the changes in 2017. We had a chat with senior managers and people liaising with the agencies. As a result everyone who worked on the 3 major projects was asked to sign new contract and was declared "out", one team who worked on small projects/service improvement kind of work and all who were doing BAU were declared "in" most of those were already using umbrella so didn't care much, several walked and just 1 or 2 swallowed the change, and these weren't very good

edit: Just to add that "grade" is mostly "pay band" in the Public sector, where a specific role must be a specific grade. With conditions that you must have worked in the organization for X years before you can move up etc.. One of the main reasons the public sector can't attract decent techies is that managers have to be higher grade than techies and since there is abundance of sub-par middle managers willing to work for peanuts, techies get even less.