The end

[Fred Bloggs]

Good luck all you temporary employees.

Well, it has arrived bang on time. April 2020. I hope you all enjoy your new found employment along with all the employment rights you fought for but "didn't really want". Don't say you weren't warned, it's taken over twenty years to happen but now reality has caught up with you. Most of you will finally be recognised as the bum on a seat temporary employee you always were. You had a great run pretending to be "real businesses", but now, in line with just about everywhere else in the world, you've become temps. The last two or three years I have met a lot of ex-contractors from the UK in various parts of the world. I guess in the next year or so, I'll be meeting many more who, like me have voted with our feet. The UK chancellor now gets a bit fat zero from me and many others despite me earning more now than I ever did back in good old Blighty. Good luck guys/ladies, see you soon.

[Fred Bloggs]

People could join some organisation that fights for the rights of independent professionals and the self-employed. All coming together to fight a common cause and all that.

Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's start something called the Professional Contractors Group. We could be all noisy and rabble rousing and be a pain in the government's side. For 18 years we could prevent the nasty Mr Brown and his pals from taxing us to oblivion. We could even take a case to the very top of the UK legal profession and win!

(But then we could overnight start saying we represented the self employed, like Deliveroo and Uber workers or Plumbers. Then we could cuddle up to the government and have tea and biccies. We could even fight for and obtain employees rights that we say we don't want. And then when the person who doesn't want to be an employee is declared one, we can claim a victory. And, we could sell out all those public sector Ltd Co contractors who we said we were going to fight for to keep them out of the very legislation we were founded to fight against. And then one day, we found we'd accidentally thrown all of us under the very same bus. Great idea eh?) Shame on you PCG/IPSE, shame on you with the snouts in the trough fiddling while Rome burnt to cinder.

[webberg]

My biggest fear is that - just as in 1999 - end clients do not want permanent or temporary employees and will pressure contractors to remain as that.

In the absence of agencies/umbrellas/recruiters taking on the risk of getting that call wrong, it will fall on individual contractors.

There are undoubtedly some people out there who are ready to come forward with a "compliant, QC approved" scheme to "solve" this problem.

I hope that most contractors are now too savvy to fall for those, but sadly I suspect not.

New models are going to be needed and a better balance between end client who wants a job done and contractor who has the skills to do it.

[original PM]

If you genuinely run a small business offering IT/Other consultancy services to a number of clients then you will have nothing to worry about.

Want some tips on how to look like running a small business then PM me - my rates are reasonable.

[Fred Bloggs]

If you genuinely run a small business offering IT/Other consultancy services to a number of clients then you will have nothing to worry about.

Want some tips on how to look like running a small business then PM me - my rates are reasonable.

Correct. Maybe 99% of posters here fail that test. I know, I have sat next to them. I bet you have too.

[Fred Bloggs]

My biggest fear is that - just as in 1999 - end clients do not want permanent or temporary employees and will pressure contractors to remain as that.

In the absence of agencies/umbrellas/recruiters taking on the risk of getting that call wrong, it will fall on individual contractors.

There are undoubtedly some people out there who are ready to come forward with a "compliant, QC approved" scheme to "solve" this problem.

I hope that most contractors are now too savvy to fall for those, but sadly I suspect not.

New models are going to be needed and a better balance between end client who wants a job done and contractor who has the skills to do it.

That new model has already existed for decades, forever even. It's called a fixed term contract. Whether on an employers or an agencies payroll, that's the new model. Anything less than that on full PAYE will lead to the same old schemes you allude to above, those "HMRC approved, fully compliant" ones. With the same old fall out as a result.

[fatJock]

People said the same when IR35 was introduced, when it was reformed, when it hit the Public Sector and hey, guess what. We are still here.

Far too much to go on between now and then to be throwing the towel in.

Fully agree .... far too much speculation on what will be etc. IR35 was meant to be the death knell for contacting all those years ago.

I'm surprised it was extended to 2020 to be fair so if nothing else, more time to make hay until we know the detail and what the strategies to tackle are.

[original PM]

Correct. Maybe 99% of posters here fail that test. I know, I have sat next to them. I bet you have too.

Indeed - however often I found it was the agency to blame - generally offering crap rates say about £10 per hour but selling it to the person that if they run a limited (or go through a brolly) they will get much more than if they were paye.....

This was about 15 years ago mind you - then since then no agencies do PAYE so everyone had to go through brollies or limiteds.... (or PSC but lets move on from that)

Then brollies expenses got nerfed and so ltd was the only was to go if you wanted to try and get any of your tax back and not just pay a brolly for doing your PAYE payroll.

So in essence the industry and the agencies have created this problem because often the contractor literally had no other option.

[Lance]

If you genuinely run a small business offering IT/Other consultancy services to a number of clients then you will have nothing to worry about.

Want some tips on how to look like running a small business then PM me - my rates are reasonable.

That's great except the number of clients you have has not been the subject of an IR35 test case so is not relevant in the law. Albeit probably relevant to the spirit of what it's trying to prevent.
Wasn't number of clients part of the old business entity test (BET)?

[original PM]

That's great except the number of clients you have has not been the subject of an IR35 test case so is not relevant in the law. Albeit probably relevant to the spirit of what it's trying to prevent.
Wasn't number of clients part of the old business entity test (BET)?

It's about believability

If you have 4 different clients over 2 years with clear breaks between them you can clearly say you have not been a disguised employee and that should hold up in court - especially if you pay me for some advice on how to look like a business to HMRC

if you have been at the same client for 2 years your argument is weaker....a lot weaker especially if you have been minimising pay and maximising dividends..