DWP hit with £87.9m tax bill by HMRC over 'historic' IR35 errors

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NotAllThere replied

27 July 2021, 20:13
When I worked for Her Majesty's Government, I took the whole fee (mines tax and NI) to be a massive tax rebate. All my taxes went to pay me. It was brilliant.

So the headline should really read: government department gives £87.9m of its money to another government department.
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eek replied

27 July 2021, 18:25
Originally posted by DrStrange View Post

So, if I contracted there and paid my CT + DT thinking my income was revenue and it's now turned out that it was actually my net income, can I reclaim those taxes paid in error?

Ask hmrc and dwp and see their reaction
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DrStrange replied

27 July 2021, 18:22
So, if I contracted there and paid my CT + DT thinking my income was revenue and it's now turned out that it was actually my net income, can I reclaim those taxes paid in error?
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eek replied

23 July 2021, 14:25
Originally posted by ladymuck View Post

How does paying that bill work in practicality? It's basically an inter-departmental transfer but I guess HMRC will claim that it's topped up the coffers all the same.

Yep.

Interestingly HMRC were worse culprits and DWP only joined in after they discovered the tricks HMRC were playing - you can tell from the fact the 2018-19 is worse than 2017-18.

Both departments trying to recruit from the same limited North East talent pool does result in the other party knowing what is going on.

It's also worth saying that HMRC needed a big win to apply some pressure to commercial firms and Have you seen the size of the fine we gave the department we work with closest is definitely a good story from their eyes.

Edit to add - I love the assumption that CEST was used inappropriately to determine the status - I suspect in most cases CEST wasn't even touched.

Last edited by eek; 23 July 2021, 14:29.
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ladymuck replied

23 July 2021, 14:15
How does paying that bill work in practicality? It's basically an inter-departmental transfer but I guess HMRC will claim that it's topped up the coffers all the same.
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KUWTC started a topic DWP hit with £87.9m tax bill by HMRC over 'historic' IR35 errors

23 July 2021, 13:40
DWP hit with £87.9m tax bill by HMRC over 'historic' IR35 errors

This is quite interesting because DWP were using CEST to carry out their assessments... Maybe this was HMRC's ploy all along? Make CEST so rubbish that it turns out incorrect results, and then HMRC can take the departments that rely on it to the cleaners. Genius, really...

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/...essment-errors
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