MPs won’t be the only ones waiting to hear how it is that ‘HMRC manifestly failed to do its duty on an industrial scale’ with agency workers who used umbrella companies.
Sombre and powerful, a vigil-turned-protest outside HMRC’s office is further pressure on a chancellor being asked for answers -- by 55 advisers and 80 MPs.
It’s wild; hysterical and panic-inducing – and that’s only the coverage. Fortunately for contractors, the likelihood is just a reversion of the property market to 2021.
According to people who’ve been in the negotiating room with HM Treasury’s new boss, he’s versatile, open-minded, and not accepting of civil servants' scripts.
Contractor experts try to set aside their concerns, as the ex-chancellor who gave PSCs IR35 reform and next to nothing during covid is coronated Tory leader.
Officials effectively saying ‘as you were’ isn’t a message that can hurt contractors. Not after the ‘crazy situation’ their entire sector has just endured.
A PSC profits rate of up to 26.5% is back on the cards, following one chancellor’s political collapse, and his successor raising the stakes on limited companies.
Calls for a potentially ‘desperate’ taxman to offer PSCs an amnesty don’t get an answer, possibly as Status Determination Statements will come with a post-repeal ‘hangover.’