Lobbying Mr Speaker on IR35

[mb31]

Re: chambermaid, the notice period will depend on what's in her contract of employment for the first 24 month. I think if I were her I'd decline the contract offer and find another job because there are plenty of rich people on this forum who require chambermaids. I'm still not sure what the connection is to IR35 though?

Back on topic, Lindsay Hoyle has been chairing the budget for many years as part of his deputy speaker role. It's safe to assume that he is very knowledgeable of IR35 and my knowledge is fairly limited to the articles I've read in the last month or two.

That said, I'm in the business of writing clear and concise arguments with reference to legislation. I challenged a team of employment lawyers at a large company and got a desirable outcome. Part and parcel of that was seeking free and independent advice. I'm more the capable of taking a measured approach. It would be letter first then arrange a face to face

Who would you recommend I approach to get free IR35 expertise?

[northernladuk]

I applaud you commitment but I'll repeat, if your experience boils down to reading a few articles and are having to ask for free ir35 advice then I, and I am sure many other experienced contractors, would rather you backed down from this. It will make no difference at best and at worse cause more problems.

I am guessing though, from reading this thread you can't see the wood for the trees and are going to continue this crusade regardless.

[malvolio]

If you dont get the point of the chambermaid illustration, you cannot argue about IR35.

As for the source of iunbiased nformation talk to IPSE. But not knowing that also blows your claim to expertise.

[mb31]

I'm still a member of a trade union from my last job and I know they provide legal advice beyond just employment law. It might be worth asking if they are involved in any IR35 type discussions at a senior level (at the very least they would have a relationship with various clients).

malvolio, you keep ducking my question like a politician so this is good practice. How does the chambermaid's situation relate to IR35?

NLUK, there's no need to fret. I'm floating ideas. I wouldn't do anything unless the consensus view of experienced contractors thought it was a good idea.

[ladymuck]

I don't follow what you're saying.

If I were the Chambermaid I'd sue the manager for unfair dismissal on the grounds that the job continues to exist and there should have been no redundancy. I'd already be protected by employment law so how would IR35 help me in the example you've provided? In fact IR35 would make the chambermaids situation worse because she would probably rely on an umbrella with fees.

There was no redundancy mentioned in the scenario.

[ladymuck]

Ok so you can't get your head around a chambermaid. You're fixated on the nature of the work, not the scenario.

A company wants to reduce its wages and benefits bills. The easiest way to do that is to release staff and there is a myriad of ways to achieve that legally. They then hire the resource needed to do the work. That could be by using direct freelance resource, agency supplied resource, or big4 consultancy resource. The company saves on costs and still gets the job done with none of that pesky employment rights nonsense.

HMRC believe that the bad guy in this scenario is the hired resource, not the company.

Forced incorporation came about because there is a liability risk of who pays employment taxes when engaging with self employed people.

[mb31]

I think I follow that LM. HMRC sees the self employed person as the tax avoider, which is profoundly unfair. What confuses me is why IR35 offers protection to the sacked individual as per the quote below?

There are reasons why IR35 is still with us, and they are nothing to do (in HMG's eyes at least) with countering tax avoidance other than in the most egregious cases, but with stopping forced incorporation of lower paid workers. The fact that they can't distinguish between serious contractors with high skills, be they engineers, IT or medical staff, and low-paid vulnerable workers such as leisure industry staff, social workers and the like, is the real problem.

There are a number of ways of getting rid of staff but most of them are some form of dismissal (which may or may not be fair/wrongful).

[mb31]

Btw, how do I attach one of my own photos? I create a link through google photos but when I paste it through the images button it doesn't show. I'll try posting the link on it's own instead (scrap that, it included my name, thanks for looking after my privacy there google).

Just in case you're interested, here's the sort of thing I get through my letter box. Look at the third green tick down, it might be that this related only to local issues:

[mb31]

Sign in – Google accounts

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[malvolio]

I think I follow that LM. HMRC sees the self employed person as the tax avoider, which is profoundly unfair. What confuses me is why IR35 offers protection to the sacked individual as per the quote below?




There are a number of ways of getting rid of staff but most of them are some form of dismissal (which may or may not be fair/wrongful).

For low grade staff, one week's notice is usually sufficient. Especially if they will have work the following week at what looks to them like an increased level.

The reason to keep IR35 in this scenario is that it is intended to pass the tax burden back on to the employer. Of course, it fails dismally to do so, but HMG have never really been interested in reality.

As you say, they simply assume the worker is doing the tax avoidance, not the client company. This has only just been brought to their notice by recent BBC cases, where someone in HMT finally realised how much BBC were saving by moving employees to "contractors". Remember that only one case to date has agreed that the presenter was inside IR35. So give it another three years and the reality may finally dawn on them...

Meanwhile, please don't debate IR35 with Mr Speaker, you will likely do more harm than good. Leave it to the professionals.