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.
IR35 advisers risk getting ahead of themselves by saying one ‘highly fact-sensitive’ case is a sign of things to come from contractors (bar those ‘workers’ who’ve contracted via Tripod).
A look by someone who’s sold up already at whether April 6th 2026 regulation is going to trigger umbrella mergers, acquisitions by recruitment agencies, or neither.
IR35, tax and umbrella company advisers are hoping the chancellor uses her second fiscal package to ‘steady the ship’ -- by rescinding April’s employer NIC changes.
Autumn Budget brought a glimmer of hope that ‘LTD’ will be back in business in 2025-26, if only because the taxman’s new tanks are parked on the lawn of everybody else.
The cheered-on Covid Corruption Commissioner is set to back strictness for taxpayers and leniency for the taxman (not vice versa), as seen in Ark Angel Ltd v HMRC.
Nineteen ‘exceptional’ companies, six ‘highly commended’ providers, and two individuals. All just got acknowledged as going ‘the extra mile’ for UK IT contracting.
There’s no final bill or liability admission. But the Welsh government agency set up to sustainably manage the environment clearly didn’t manage off-payroll worker status properly.
Seven takeaways from the 15 month-coming ‘Mutuality’ case, where the final whistle on the referees’ status may still be pipped at the post by a rematch.
The latest public sector IR35 bill is pretty swingeing -- but the overall trend suggests public sector bodies are getting to grips with the OPW rules, after seven long years.
It’s clear HMRC has learnt from its enforcement work in the public sector, before HS2 and as a direct result of it. Don’t leave your own learnings to the last.
Supreme Court sides with the taxman by ruling that if there’s a contract, there’s mutual obligations -- thereby removing MoO as a future outside IR35 ‘battleground’.
Sky Sports rugby pundit tackled by the ‘growing trend of UT clashing with FTT on IR35,’ sidelining what happened -- in favour of the hypothetical contract.
Concerned for their wellbeing, Australia just gave employees a right to disconnect. Maybe the UK should do the same, but for its freelance consultants too.
Better outcomes, value for money, and improved prospects. That, at least, is the three-fold pledge of the chancellor’s now-underway rethink on retirement savings.
Delays, a reluctant Revenue, and extra work for contractor accountants -- all things that a frank impact assessment of hiking the tax return threshold should have said.
Taxman says seven avoidance schemes (all employment tax-related) should be avoided, even though contractors often have ‘little choice’ but to use them.
Two appeal faults in a row due to a chartered adviser’s mistakes mean we’ll now never know if the Sky tennis pundit’s IR35 status would have been called ‘in’ or ‘out.’
The only certainty of the ‘will-she-won’t-she’ pensions raid furore is the wisdom in maxing out your allowance now, while it remains generous and intact.
The end of 2025 is the first time contractors will get their day in court against HMRC and its 2007 legislation, ahead of a June 2026 ruling, and resolution by January 2030. Hopefully.
A sceptical agent’s Excel test is a sign of things to come -- but don’t take it personally, our job is to work out if what you say about your skills is true.
The Growth & Skills Levy is one of a few steps in the right direction. Ministers understanding not everyone’s a permie is key to avoid taking us back to square one.
Treasury exchequer secretary James Murray is the new broom to sweep away the wrongs of Lucy Frazer and her rotten Tory government. And 131 parliamentarians are there to see that he does exactly that.
