The government’s focus is firmly on umbrella companies, but ‘there’s still a lot on the table’ that chancellor Rachel Reeves could hit contractors with 12 weeks from now.
Hopes now rest with Autumn Budget following the third-lowest score for IT contractors in 2025, which isn’t due to a ‘summer slowdown,’ but is, conversely, amid a ‘sunnier outlook.'
Dual blend: Integrating flexible talent with AI expertise, ahead of merging internal and external teams, is now considered the key to building a high-performance workforce.
If PAYE/NICs to the taxman fall short under both Chapters 11 and 7, the top agency or MSP is on the hook. And if there’s no agency or no umbrella, the end-client is on the hook.
Policy-makers’ focus on 665,000 Personal Service Companies must be sharpened to untangle them from the web that successive governments have ensnared them in.
The ‘toughest crackdown on late payments to SMEs in a generation’ could potentially ‘bring super slow payers up to speed,’ or it might merely be 'tinkering around the edges.’
HMRC’s ‘retrospective due diligence’ -- revisiting MSC determinations mid-appeal to request the actual income data -- is unprecedented. So too will be the FTT’s decision in just six months.
Contrary to dangerous assumptions, it’s end-clients who face joint and several liability for agency contractors’ PAYE/NIC debts, unless an umbrella company is involved.
Ahead of test cases in February 2026, Boox and Churchill Knight contractors have been selected for a pilot HMRC is already having to quietly apologise about.
How contractor recruitment agencies appear to be caught between two competing pieces of legislation, and what navigating the push-pull needs to involve.
What steps umbrella employees should take to prepare for the new ‘JSL’ legislation (includes some urgent actions if you’re using a tax avoidance scheme).
Umbrellas get to retain their ERN and continue PAYE operations, while recruiters still ‘bear the brunt,’ under an updated version of HMRC’s incoming legislation.
Although the truth isn’t getting in the way of a good LinkedIn post, there are genuine lessons to learn from IT director Ben Wicken v Akita Systems Ltd.
TV host Ant Middleton is among the famous (and not-so-famous) faces falling foul of the Insolvency Service, with disqualification orders in just three cases totalling 16 years.
Accreditation body welcomes Lord Holmes’ clause to subject every ‘employment business participating in employment arrangements’ to a ‘licensing authority.’
Taxman blackens the black mark he’s already put by three companies, while ‘naming and shaming’ four more schemes that he says ‘contractors should exit.’
Ex-HMRC veteran tells ContractorUK that IT contractors could help his ‘focussed’ review, even if it is a ‘disappointingly narrow’ focus according to some.
Despite a lean statement with no ‘further tax rises,’ umbrella and limited company workers aren’t off the hook, due to a ‘soon-to-be reinvigorated HMRC.’
Greg Smith MP: My hope is the former HMRC inspector makes huge adjustments to scrutinise a scandal that this government cynically wants him to avoid looking properly into at all.
A ‘cog in the wheel’ who spun ‘legal alternatives to using insolvency practitioners’ to distressed IT firms is disqualified, after £7.6million in assets goes unaccounted for.
With the IR35 ball soon back in some contractors’ courts, blanketing should ease, but the compliance burden for many individual limited company workers will increase.
Criticisms that still dog Sir Amyas Morse’s work are already Ray McCann’s to squelch, as he begins a ‘skewed brief’ that makes a ‘sham’ of Rachel Reeves’ promise.
