Are we really thinking of off payroll rules for Private Sector?

[MrMarkyMark]

Actually less aware is not an excuse. They still let a salesman take advantage of their greed and put themselves in the situation. So you then get down to the question of is the issue a consumer issue (with the protection of innocents that implies) or a business issue (its up to you to get professional advice prior to signing something). And tax schemes have always fallen into the latter category rather than the former.

True these schemes were being targeted at a different (far less / utter unsophisticated) market to the more sophisticated investor schemes used to target but that doesn't mean it becomes a consumer issue especially as most of the schemes came from a different jurisdiction.

Oh and before DS has another dig unlike most here I do help the posters in the HMRC enquiry thread out - I seem to be the person who organises the PM access requests - my only issue is that I don't believe there is anything wrong with HMRC asking for the tax that should have been paid to be paid.... Now if you argued that the calculations are insane and unfair due to their insane assumptions I would agree with that.

Eek, in the eyes of the law, of that I'm well aware.
In the purest form, if you are in business you should know what you are getting into, nI fully agree.

However, the way they sold the schemes stank and as facilitators of tax avoidance I still believe they should face some kind of liability.
I know the law has nowhere for the marble to drop with regards to this, in reality.

[eek]

Eek, in the eyes of the law, of that I'm well aware.
In the purest form, if you are in business you should know what you are getting into, nI fully agree.

However, the way they sold the schemes stank and as facilitators of tax avoidance I still believe they should face some kind of liability.
I know the law has nowhere for the marble to drop with regards to this, in reality.

Sorry but's its hard to look at the loan sizes being quoted as examples on http://forums.contractoruk.com/hmrc-...ml#post2383294 and seeing any member of the public sympathising...

[DotasScandal]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: no one is after sympathy. 99% are ready to settle on a fair basis, it's HMRC who is playing all sorts of games to extort the maximum possible amounts, without admitting they have a part of responsibility in the whole fiasco. People are ready to make amends and move on with their lives, NOT be left holding the bag for bureaucrats attempting to cover up their failures of the last decade.
I refer you to the links in my previous post.
Loan sizes have nothing to do with it.

[eek]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: no one is after sympathy. 99% are ready to settle on a fair basis, it's HMRC who is playing all sorts of games to extort the maximum possible amounts, without admitting they have a part of responsibility for the whole fiasco. People are ready to make amends and move on with their lives, NOT be left holding the bag for bureaucrats attempting to cover up their failures of the past decade.
I refer you to the links in my previous posts.

And I refer you to mine on this page and the previous ones. I'm not offering sympathy just showing why few outside those who joined a scheme believes anyone is being unfairly treated.. Heck just look at the examples someone is posting in link above - no one is going to believe you are an innocent victim after pulling £0,000s of income out as loans....

[DotasScandal]

And I refer you to mine on this page and the previous ones. I'm not offering sympathy just showing why few outside those who joined a scheme believes anyone is being unfairly treated.. Heck just look at the examples someone is posting in link above - no one is going to believe you are an innocent victim after pulling £0,000s of income out as loans....

Taken out of context any figure is meaningless. By focusing on some guy's APN figure rather than paying attention to the narrative HMRC have built with the help of professional propagandists (Behavioural Insights Ltd.), you're like the guy who's being shown the moon but keeps staring at the finger. Given your lack of understanding of the subject and your apparent unwillingness to familiarize yourself with the FACTS, I suggest we leave this conversation at this.

[eek]

Taken out of context any figure is meaningless. By focusing on some guy's APN figure rather than paying attention to the narrative HMRC have built with the help of professional propagandists (Behavioural Insights Ltd.), you're like the guy who's being shown the moon but keeps staring at the finger. Given your lack of understanding of the subject and your apparent unwillingness to familiarize yourself with the FACTS, I suggest we leave this conversation at this.

Nope I'm fully aware of the facts that HMRC haven't exactly being playing fair. The problem with the argument, however, is that the people using schemes were equally taking the mickey and its hardly surprising that the general public believes they should be (re) paying the tax they previously avoided - whether it was legally avoided at the time or not. And as people far more learn'd than myself have taking everything to court and those courts have found all this legal including the retrospective bits I think the best you can hope for is legal but unfair and I've already stated that the calculations are unfair.

Then as I said before once you get past that point you are left with the question are those people innocent consumers who should be protected from their mistakes or were these decisions business decisions for which there is no excuse - and in that case I disagree with MMM as I do believe people should be held responsible for their decisions no matter how misguided their were....

[northernladyuk]

Seems to me that prior to the last few budgets/statements this site and others like it have been blind sided with the attacks on Contractors. They've not been able to predict anything from the red box, and have looked a little embarassed afterwards.
There's nothing to be embarassed about, nobody coudl imagine a government so hell bent on screwing us over.

However I noticed the headline on the site this morning about the public sector IR35 rules coming to the private sector. While I am not doubting the desire to do this within HMRC, I can't help but think that this is simply trying to call it just in case it happens.

It may well happen one day, but before the end of this parliament is unlikely and given that the tool is throwing up "outside" at almost everyone, it's clearly no where near ready to be implemented in a far more complex world of the private sector.

Look to Ireland for a simple solution. Tax dividends as earned income including NIC and then let contractors do what they like with salary and dividends.

[jamesbrown]

Look to Ireland for a simple solution. Tax dividends as earned income including NIC and then let contractors do what they like with salary and dividends.

Remind me of the structure in Ireland; isn't it just a dividend witholding tax at normal income tax rates (to which CT doesn't apply)? What about NICs? Unless there's a look-through structure whereby company income (minus limited expenses) is fully (or almost fully) taxed under PAYE on the controlling persons, there will always be the perception of a "tax gap". Having income deferred and taxed at lower marginal rates in future is generally a bigger issue than the marginal rates themselves, at least for higher paid contractors. In other words, the only "simple" solution that achieves the objective of equivalent tax treatment across different forms of income is also pretty drastic. Perhaps an equivalent treatment of different forms of income, as it arises, is an acceptable compromise, but it's far from equal treatment. Obviously, there's a reasonable justification for this too, because we can only do this with a warchest and, from our perspective, it's punitive to heavily tax a good year when a bad year is around the corner, but this isn't an easy argument to win.

[eek]

Look to Ireland for a simple solution. Tax dividends as earned income including NIC and then let contractors do what they like with salary and dividends.

Doesn't work as JB states you need to change a lot of other things to get to that point.

The issue the government has is that it needs to change things in such a way that there are no get outs. Suppose you decide the answer is the 80% rule as used in Australia (and a variation in Germany). Instantly you would have care workers working for 2 different companies with their clients being billed across the 2 different companies..

And as I'm continually repeating here we are not the direct targets in this (I think the fact the ESS tests give us a chance of passing them shows that much) we are merely caught in the crossfire...

[WordIsBond]

The PR on this is very simple; we're all tax-evading scum.

The problem is that they're the ones with the microphone so get heard far more than we do. Nobody will pick up and run with the argument about us being unable to claim any employment benefit whatsoever despite being taxed like one.

Somebody is going to have to do it in court. THAT will be heard loud and clear. It has to be someone in the PS whose client declared them inside IR35. By declaring that, they are declaring that you work like an employee, and so should be taxed like an employee. When your employer says that and doesn't give you employment benefits, it's court time.