IR35 Forum – 21 February 2018
Posted on 7th March 2018 at 09:45
Once again, representatives from Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT), Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), The Association of Independent Professionals (IPSE), several others and HMRC met on 21 February 2018.
What was discussed?
The Employment Status Consultation was published on 7 February. It was confirmed that this consultation was open for 16 weeks, closing on 1 June 2018. As noted in the December Forum, HMRC do not see this having an impact on a proposed private sector roll-out of IR35 reforms, but External members of the forum remain keen for these to be considered side-by-side.
HMRC confirmed that they have around 250 experts in employment status whose key focus for the past 12 months has been providing support to public authorities to implement the IR35 reforms. External members were keen to remind HMRC of the blanket assessments that have been seen across the sector, particularly in the NHS but HMRC stated that they had seen no evidence of this.
CEST and the inclusion of Mutuality of Obligation (MOO)
Once again, the External members were keen to challenge HMRC on CEST. HMRC presented the members with a technical paper to provide an explanation of how the tool works which the members will consider.
The key points in the paper were:-
Where work is provided and remuneration is paid, HMRC assumes MOO and a contract exists. HMRC then considered whether this is an employment contract or contract for services.
CEST assumes MOO exists.
Substitution and delegation should be key factors in determining employment status.
External members argued that the assumption by CEST that MOO exists is incorrect and can lead to
incorrect determinations.
Can I read more?
Of course. For full details – you can read from the Forum Minutes here.
Written by:
Nicola J O'Sullivan -
Effective Accounting
Founder | Xero Champion | IR35 Expert
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