Until the onset of the public sector IR35 rules, there was little tax or employment risk of dealing with a standard company contractor so long as the obvious tax avoidance models were avoided.
The BBC has reported that it believes the IR35 public sector rules are to be extended to the private sector in the budget later this month. Anyone who has followed the path of this controversial tax proposal will not be taken by surprise.
Recent reports involving a claim by the contractor Susan Winchester (Ms. W) for holiday pay deserve more analysis. The reports, published by Contractor Calculator (CC) and on the IPSE website, state that Ms W received an out of court settlement on the day of an Employment Tribunal hearing for her claim for unpaid holiday pay based on the fact that she was an agency worker, the claim apparently having been made under the Agency Worker Regulations.
There are few people in this world who are more autonomous than football referees. Controlling the beautiful game, sometimes to the frustration of one team or another, the ref is the authority and calls the shots until the final whistle blows. Even the video ref is a referee with comprehensive power to exercise judgment.
He’s “not self employed”, therefore he must be “a worker” said the Court of Appeal, in the recent Pimlico Plumber case. In reaching this decision, the hare has been set loose and the HMRC hounds will soon follow.
Recruitment has always been about matching a person to a role and then making it happen in the most efficient and productive way. In the early days the only issue to consider, apart from getting the right person for the job, was securing fees.
The Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) welcomes the cautious approach adopted by the Chancellor in his budget today in relation to imposition of the public sector tax rules (commonly known as IR35) on the private sector and in further considering employment practices following Matthew Taylor’s report earlier this year.
In a recent decision, Tillman (T) v Egon Zehnder Ltd (EZ), the Court of Appeal refused to enforce a ‘non-compete’ clause in an ex-employee’s contract, on the grounds that the clause was too wide and therefore amounted to an unlawful restraint of trade.
A new global report has revised the estimated number of victims of modern slavery worldwide upwards, from 21m to 40m. Around 10,000 victims are thought to be living in the UK.
IR35 and the “off payroll rules” are once again hitting the headlines, with HMRC giving its biggest indication yet that the rules may be extended to the private sector.