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List of Blanket Ban Companies in respect of IR35 "Reform"

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    List of Blanket Ban Companies in respect of IR35 "Reform"

    Hi All,

    I'd like to enquire if there is a list on the forum of companies that have brought in blanket bans on Contractors, as a consequence of IR35?
    (If not, could I be directed to one?
    Or perhaps we could begin compiling one here?)

    I cannot speak for other industries, but these blanket bans seem to be increasingly prevalent in the Pharmaceutical sector, where 'outside IR35' status is simply ignored.
    I've searched the Financial Times, and while I've seen that Limited Company closures reached a record during Q3 and Q4 of 2020, this is being reported as a consequence of Ex Post Facto tax laws.
    There appears to be minimal current reporting on IR35 and the consequences.

    Googling for specific companies using blanket bans yields the same few names over and over, such as GSK. But little further insight.
    My perception is that the media are almost ignoring a paradigm shift in UK industry.

    Without such a list, it's difficult to assess what the actual impact is.
    If the impact is not understood, it's not likely the media will react.

    #2
    No-one will really know until April.

    And you're welcome to create a list but we aren't going to bother, it will probably be easier to ask who won't be bringing in a blanket ban.

    (and where have you been for the last 3 years? It's a bit late to get the media stirred up about this now.)
    "I can put any old tat in my sig, put quotes around it and attribute to someone of whom I've heard, to make it sound true."
    - Voltaire/Benjamin Franklin/Anne Frank...

    Comment


      #3
      There is already a website that does this and has been in place for over the last year. You can quickly see which companies are effectively blanket banning. I'm not associated with the website but have found it very useful.

      OffPayroll.org.uk

      That list tells you everything you need to know about prospective contract clients.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by ShandyDrinker View Post
        There is already a website that does this and has been in place for over the last year. You can quickly see which companies are effectively blanket banning. I'm not associated with the website but have found it very useful.

        OffPayroll.org.uk

        That list tells you everything you need to know about prospective contract clients.
        Excellent - this is precisely the kind of thing I was looking for.
        Thank You.

        I can see that none of the blanket banning companies I'm aware of have been added.

        I will start circulating to contractors and ask them to begin updating.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Pragmatist View Post
          Excellent - this is precisely the kind of thing I was looking for.
          Thank You.

          I can see that none of the blanket banning companies I'm aware of have been added.

          I will start circulating to contractors and ask them to begin updating.
          It would be great if the entire contracting community adds details on this site just so it becomes transparent how many end clients are treating contractors, good or bad.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Pragmatist View Post
            Excellent - this is precisely the kind of thing I was looking for.
            Thank You.

            I can see that none of the blanket banning companies I'm aware of have been added.

            I will start circulating to contractors and ask them to begin updating.
            And that's because a blanket ban is nothing to do with IR35 but rather companies running scared of getting involved with IR35 so taking the easy way out. Which is why they won't appear on a site labelled "Off Payroll", which is a specific piece of legislation.

            HTH...
            Blog? What blog...?

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by malvolio View Post
              And that's because a blanket ban is nothing to do with IR35 but rather companies running scared of getting involved with IR35 so taking the easy way out. Which is why they won't appear on a site labelled "Off Payroll", which is a specific piece of legislation.

              HTH...
              I think you're perhaps being somewhat pedantic. The end result to HMRC is the same - people on payroll, whether via an umbrella, FTC, PAYE or effectively caught under the new rules.

              While this is undoubtedly nuanced, in the eyes of many, if companies are not allowing contractors via limited companies, there is effectively a blanket ban.

              At the time of writing, google returns 378 instances of "blanket ban" on the website, per this google search.

              It's fair to say that a significant number of the larger users of contractors have all gone down the route of blanket bans. Sorry, I meant forcing people onto payroll or via umbrella companies.
              Last edited by ShandyDrinker; 26 January 2021, 22:47.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by ShandyDrinker View Post
                There is already a website that does this and has been in place for over the last year. You can quickly see which companies are effectively blanket banning. I'm not associated with the website but have found it very useful.

                OffPayroll.org.uk

                That list tells you everything you need to know about prospective contract clients.
                I can tell you now I'm on an outside contract with a firm who has "blanket ban" listed on that site.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by ShandyDrinker View Post
                  I think you're perhaps being somewhat pedantic. The end result to HMRC is the same - people on payroll, whether via an umbrella, FTC, PAYE or effectively caught under the new rules.

                  While this is undoubtedly nuanced, in the eyes of many, if companies are not allowing contractors via limited companies, there is effectively a blanket ban.

                  At the time of writing, google returns 378 instances of "blanket ban" on the website, per this google search.

                  It's fair to say that a significant number of the larger users of contractors have all gone down the route of blanket bans. Sorry, I meant forcing people onto payroll or via umbrella companies.
                  Except choosing not to use external resources via a PSC (spit) is not going to interest HMRC. So what you end up with are either a workforce of employees with no rights to any kind of employee protection and support and/or a workforce exposed to the predations of "umbrellas" who aren't anything of the sort and/or people having to pay for expenses - ErNICs, AL, pension contributions, whatever - that are not their costs.

                  What you can't do is challenge a company for choosing who it does business with and under what conditions.

                  As for "pedant", then if companies are not allowing contractors via limited companies, there is effectively a blanket ban is true but it is nothing to do with IR35.

                  Yes of course both groups wind up on someone's payroll, the challenge is what are you going to do about it? The remedy of working in a way that is outside IR35 (as per vwdan's post above, for example) is not readily available except in what will soon be very rare circumstances.

                  As an aside, there are several people setting up websites and seminars aimed at telling companies how to deal with IR35 under Section 10. They are all, in my view, wasting their time by attacking the wrong problem.
                  Blog? What blog...?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by malvolio View Post
                    And that's because a blanket ban is nothing to do with IR35 but rather companies running scared of getting involved with IR35 so taking the easy way out. Which is why they won't appear on a site labelled "Off Payroll", which is a specific piece of legislation.

                    HTH...
                    No, if you'd bothered to look, you'd know that the website explicitly deals with both (it has a "PSC ban" category and an "Permie roles only" category, among other things), which seems reasonable, since it all stems from the same thing. The straightforward reason that some clients are missing from the list is that they haven't yet been added. As to the accuracy of the information, who knows, since it's crowd-sourced and spans more than a year of inputs (including leading up to the delayed rollout, and some clients will inevitably have changed their approach over that period).

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