Our website uses cookies to store information on your computer. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but parts of the site will not work as a result. Find out more about how we use cookies.
(Accept cookies and do not show this message again)

Shout99.com - Freelancers Outside IR35

To Print this page select Print from the File menu.
Please use your browser Back button to return to Shout99.com

Shout99

IR35 extension is a new 'stealth tax'
by Susie Hughes at 14:21 03/05/19 (News on IR35)
The Association of Recruitment Consultancies (ARC) has claimed that the proposed extension of the public sector IR35 rules to the private sector amounts to the introduction of a new stealth tax which has far reaching political and economic ramifications.
Adrian Marlowe, chairman of ARC, said: “The proposals are subject to a consultation that declares the new rules are not a new tax. Whilst the intention to address tax avoidance is justifiable, the consultation document published on March 5, 2019 clearly states that the intention is to “seek to increase compliance in the private sector with rules that have been in place since 2000, to make sure they operate as intended”.

Politically convenient
However, argues ARC, the proposals go significantly beyond compliance with the original IR35 rules. Dressing them up in this way is clearly politically convenient, but it is not correct, and the sleight of hand appears to attempt to disguise the reality.

Advertisement
ARC makes several points to support its claim:
First, The five per cent top slice expenses allowance for contractors and arrangements to which the old IR35 rules apply are now to be taxed. This proposal is not a simple scrapping of the allowance, in other words an adjustment to existing tax rules, because private sector contractors working for small businesses are to retain the five per cent allowance. It is a new charge on the five per cent top slice.

Second, the imposition of payment of employer’s NICs on the ‘Fee Payer’, being the new deemed employer liable to account for the payments, usually the hirer, did not previously exist under Chapter 8. It is entirely new.

Third the amount of employer NICs, employee NICs and PAYE will now be calculated on the gross sum of the contractor’s invoice for work charged. This is also new as PAYE and NICs due from a contractor’s company under Chapter 8 would be calculated on the net sums, always less than the full invoice sum, even if you don’t take into account the five per cent top slice allowance. The result is a significant uplift of PAYE and NICs to be received by HMRC from the liable party over and above the amounts that HMRC could have expected under Chapter 8 from the contractor. The device used is therefore at best a brand new tax burden and at worst a new tax altogether.

This measure occurs because HMRC wants to class payments as being in respect of a deemed employment, thus adding the charge to payroll. This in itself is a new tax charge as it did not previously exist in respect of private sector arrangements. Also it has the further effect of requiring an additional new payment of apprenticeship levy on the invoice for work charged, which also did not previously exist.

Lastly under the proposals, whichever decision a hirer makes as to IR35 status, the potential liability that follows may have to be reflected in the hirer’s accounts as a contingent liability, so affecting capital value. The contingency is the prospect of a tax investigation and requirement to meet underpayments of PAYE and NICs for up to six years, possibly longer given the time HMRC takes to conclude an investigation.
It arises wherever the IR35 determination is that the arrangement is outside the rules, as this is the obvious trigger for an HMRC investigation, but also where the hirer’s determination is the arrangement is inside the IR35 rules yet there is no evidence that correct sums have been accounted for, so leading to a tax investigation. The latter could be addressed through consistent compliance measures but the former cannot unless and until HMRC declares satisfaction, which is not part of the plan.”

Entirely incorrect
For all the reasons mentioned, ARC concludes that the premise of the consultation, that it is merely a means of enforcing Chapter 8, is entirely incorrect and regrettably misleading and states that the Government should revisit the entire proposal.

Referring to the 2017 Conservative Party Manifesto and recalling the proposal in 2017 to increase NICs for the self-employed, a proposal that was dropped, Mr Marlowe concluded: “The Conservatives pledged in 2017 to keep taxes on businesses and families as low as possible and stated ‘it is our intention to reduce taxes on Britain’s businesses’. It is hard to see that the measures proposed now are in line with that promise.

"Those operating through an intermediary are to be penalised in a way which may force businesses to close, and the hirers involved are to bear the brunt of the risk because HMRC wants to better its position over and above Chapter 8.

"Were the Government to keep to its pledge it should adopt different, less invasive and more practical measures to enforcement of Chapter 8. Tax avoidance should correctly be challenged, and there are several practical possibilities which ARC has repeatedly proposed, which do not involve the imposition of these entirely new measures.”

Further IR35 information
For more information about all aspects of IR35, including the controversial IR35 reforms see Shout99's News on IR35 section.


--
If you wish to comment on this article, please log in and use the Reply button below. Registering is free and easy - see 'Join Shout99'.
-
Susie Hughes © Shout99 2019


This article was printed from Shout99.com
Copyright 1999-2015 Shout99 Ltd
All Rights Reserved