HMRC off payroll decision service

[bobspud]

is this a joke? HMRC surely would not have placed such sensitive stuff in the public domain yet.

No there is tonnes of open source government stuff hiding in plain sight we are trying to change the world dontchaknow

[youngguy]

The problem is the person answering the questions and the level of risk they are willing to accept...

Very true.

I asked QDOS what their experience was of agents and they seemed to have a sense that agents were possibly not as unwilling to accept this risk as all of us assumed.

Only time will tell of course.

[bobspud]

Very true.

I asked QDOS what their experience was of agents and they seemed to have a sense that agents were possibly not as unwilling to accept this risk as all of us assumed.

Only time will tell of course.

Imagine a situation: today a role is released and the hounds start looking for candidates. How long do you think hound a) will stand by and listen to countless candidates telling them to get f*cked because hound b) will do the same role outside IR35?

There is lots of brave tulipe being spouted on linked in right now but I can tell you the chap I spoke to the other day hadn't thought about the concept that it's the end of the client chain that makes the call and two agents are not the same...

Fun will be had

[youngguy]

Imagine a situation: today a role is released and the hounds start looking for candidates. How long do you think hound a) will stand by and listen to countless candidates telling them to get f*cked because hound b) will do the same role outside IR35?

There is lots of brave tulipe being spouted on linked in right now but I can tell you the chap I spoke to the other day hadn't thought about the concept that it's the end of the client chain that makes the call and two agents are not the same...

Fun will be had

So are you saying you think some will use this as somewhat of a USP to differentiate themselves from other agencies ?

[jonnyboy]

Are we really suggesting this is the question set that will be used on the online tool? That cant be right, can it?
The questions are pretty much the same IR35 questions that have been bouncing around for the last 10 years or so, just maybe some broken down into sub questions. Plus, there has been discussion of 'the tool not being ready on time' - you could knock that tool up in an ASP page in a few minutes. Of course, the detail is.. what is the weighting of the questions. If they all score 1 point but the question "Has own business premises" (or however it is worded) scored 99, then thats a different kettle of fish (assuming that a home office is not a business premises.

I imagine even if these are the questions/test, there will be lots of HMRC guidance and exclusions- such as "Advertising"... "HMRC advises that only those that advertise in the national press, and uses a Wipro or CACI agreed font shall bee deemed as advertising" - otherwise pretty much al of these have an easy get around (run a classified in your local rag for a few weeks for £20).

[BlueSharp]

Very true.

I asked QDOS what their experience was of agents and they seemed to have a sense that agents were possibly not as unwilling to accept this risk as all of us assumed.

Only time will tell of course.

I think QDOS may well be right. I can see agents operating like this:

Agent (a) is risk adverse and puts all contractors inside ir35 and offeres higher prices in return (possibly lower quality candidate?), starts to loose out to agent (b).

Agent (b) has a business structure to manage the financial risk decalares all contractors outside of ir35 after due dilligence and advise to the end client about how to operate correctly with contractors, every thing continues as was.

Ninja edit: Due dilligence may extend to checking we are real business before engaging with us using the check list proposed above.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Very true.

I asked QDOS what their experience was of agents and they seemed to have a sense that agents were possibly not as unwilling to accept this risk as all of us assumed.

Only time will tell of course.

QDOS's official statement last week is here https://www.qdoscontractor.com/news/...statement-2016

Their advice is

We would urge both contractors and agencies not to panic. We are actively speaking to agencies and other key parties with a view to implementing practical, sensible and compliant processes which will ensure those genuinely trading outside IR35 can continue to do so.

[eek]

QDOS's official statement last week is here https://www.qdoscontractor.com/news/...statement-2016

Their advice is

And I would adopt a wait and see approach unless you are currently in the public sector.

If you are in the public sector I would, however, be doing my hardest to find a different contract prior to April. The last thing you want is for the contract you've been doing for the past 12 - 18 months suddenly being inside IR35...

[marius123]

Are we really suggesting this is the question set that will be used on the online tool? That cant be right, can it?
The questions are pretty much the same IR35 questions that have been bouncing around for the last 10 years or so, just maybe some broken down into sub questions.

By default everything goes in the open now unless there's a good reason for it not to be rather than there being any interest in it being out there. I'll be honest I would have thought that this would be a perfect case for keeping the rules matrix etc separate and private.

If you look here you can see the answers to results matrices:
https://github.com/hmrc/off-payroll-...er/conf/tables

Certain combinations of answers lead to a definitive 'Inside' or 'Outside' result, others lead to a high/medium/low weighting that is presumably then combined with the results from other sections (some how). It still is likely some no nothing manager somewhere has to decide what level of 'risk' they're willing to take.

I've run the back end up and had a play with some of the questions/answers and it behaves pretty much as you'd expect. I don't think this is going to be something that brings a lot of clarity for anyone.

Plus, there has been discussion of 'the tool not being ready on time' - you could knock that tool up in an ASP page in a few minutes. O

You've not worked with HMRC digital have you It looks like the back end of this is on its way to being done but the front end application has barely been started. Expect a lot of time to sort that out (User Research!). I consider April optimistic.

[BoredBloke]

So are you saying you think some will use this as somewhat of a USP to differentiate themselves from other agencies ?

I thought it was the end client who were responsible for determining this...not the agency