8th August 2018

IR35 consultation response – we urge HMRC to learn from mistakes, start afresh and not to rush it

 

I’m spoilt for proverbial choice when it comes to the advice we’ve given HMRC in our IR35 consultation response…’ fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, ‘more haste, less speed’, ‘measure twice, cut once’… they all add up to an appeal to take the time to create a new, fit for purpose approach to compliance in the public and private sectors rather than trying to reform and roll out the broken public sector approach.

Our formal response, filed today includes solid research to counter HMRC’s view that IR35 in the public sector is ‘working’, some suggested alternatives and our specialist IR35 accountants thoughts on timings:

 

• We believe that the review of public-sector reforms set out in the IR35 consultation and other government documents provides an incomplete and misleading picture of the impact of the reforms. Further review on completion of a complete compliance cycle is needed and should include all parties in the supply chain. This will help identify all unintended effects of the reform such as the volume of self-employed contractors who have had PAYE incorrectly applied, and those who are working through non-compliant payroll vehicles.

 

• Our contracting accountants believe that the public sector reforms have driven non-compliance rather than addressing it, and for this reason, a different approach is needed for both the public and private sectors. We have proposed an IR35 accounting solution that focuses on compliance across the supply chain using enhanced record-keeping with a legal requirement to supply the relevant information up the chain.

 

• Given our points above, we believe that April 2019 is too soon for implementation of any reform and would not allow for proper consideration by HMRC or proper implementation of any reforms by contractors or end hirers.

 

We believe our response is measured, backed by evidence and realistic; our contractor accountants have always welcomed reform that encourages compliance and there is no doubt that compliance reforms are coming to the Private sector; we just ask HMRC to remember who won that race between the hare and the tortoise!

 

 

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