November 22nd - The death of contracting as we know it

[boxingbantz]

Higher rate of income tax-free allowance to rise to £46,350...

[boxingbantz]

No mention of anything yet...

[Swamp Thing]

We've been very fortunate in that the press over the last couple of days has lumped the IR35 and VAT changes together and pinned the government as "attackers of small business" - which includes sole traders; plumbers, decorators, etc. Whoever that came from, we owe them many many pints.

Looking over the comments in various forms of media, the general public appear to be behind us and not the government on this one, for now.

Yep, that seems to be the case. For a projected gain to Treasury of just £1bn, this is nothing more than political populism at play by Stride, Hammond et al. With all the other horrors going on in the Tory party right now, they have to calculate whether or not to put this out as a hard policy change and incur the wrath of all small/micro-businesses.
This could still bite back to Hammond the way S/E NICs did. All the tabloids have to do is spin the effect of this across other spends:

"Hammond hammers small business again for £1.2bn, yet overseas aid still £12bn and Brexit bill now £40bn."

[mattfx]

We've been very fortunate in that the press over the last couple of days has lumped the IR35 and VAT changes together and pinned the government as "attackers of small business" - which includes sole traders; plumbers, decorators, etc. Whoever that came from, we owe them many many pints.

Looking over the comments in various forms of media, the general public appear to be behind us and not the government on this one, for now.

[webberg]

If I were an HMRC/Treasury type trying to get this sort of thing through, I might argue along the following lines.

Contractors have been avoiding tax for 20 years.

We have introduced law after law after law and still they don't pay their way.

Now we need them to pay their way to pay for Bexit.

If you (Tory MP) want to oppose that, you risk being called out as supporting tax avoidance.

Therefore be a good boy/girl and don't make waves.

Yes, we know HMRC will make a horrendous mess of getting to everybody, but we have the money in the bank and the initiative is on individuals.

By the way, the Daily Hate will run stories that say "tax avoiders finally brought to heel" and therefore no fear of the redtops being offside.

And by the way it takes the news away from our rich and big corporate friends who can carry on avoiding tax for a bit longer.

(I'm not by the way an HMRC/Treasury type).

[TheFaQQer]

I agree but HMRC could say "you're all employees and if and when we get around to saying you really are not, we will refund the PAYE or credit your self employed tax account".

They could say that, but it's a backlog that they could never ever shift. Can't see any politician being that crazy that this is a policy that might do anything other than cause chaos.

[jamesbrown]

I agree but HMRC could say "you're all employees and if and when we get around to saying you really are not, we will refund the PAYE or credit your self employed tax account".

Not going to happen in the current Parliament. It only takes a tiny minority of Tory MPs to rebel, and a sizeable minority want to see the end of spreadsh!t Phil. Ordinarily, this would be exactly the right Budget for radical change, being early in the Parliament. Not going to happen.

[meanttobeworking]

A million (or more) people suddenly requiring HMRC to review their working practices and contracts before / during every piece of work? The headcount requirements alone would be horrendous.

They’d need to scale up with some freelancers...

[webberg]

A million (or more) people suddenly requiring HMRC to review their working practices and contracts before / during every piece of work? The headcount requirements alone would be horrendous.

I agree but HMRC could say "you're all employees and if and when we get around to saying you really are not, we will refund the PAYE or credit your self employed tax account".

[jamesbrown]

So, what are we thinking - IR35 reforms included in this budget or not?

I am going to go with NO.

I’m going with a yes in the form of a consultation that leads inexorably there, but not a definite implementation date.