IR35 guidance set -- the four HMRC documents

Late in the night of Friday February 3rd 2017, HMRC published guidance for personal service companies affected by April 2017’s IR35 reforms.

The guidance is:

• Approximately 900 words
• Divided into four chapters
• Introduced by a summary of the rules entitled ‘Off-Payroll Working Changes.’
• Noteworthy for what it omits (see section below), such as PSCs’ three responsibilities
• Helpful for having an example of invoicing a client where an agency is the fee-payer
• Viewable here

Also in the night-time of Friday February 3^rd, HMRC published an overview of April 2017’s IR35 reforms. This overview contains important details for ‘fee-payers,’ but also for PSCs:

The overview is:

• Approximately 1,000 words
• Divided into five chapters
• Likely to be welcomed for a section entitled ‘Responsibilities’
• Helpful for stating that PSCs will have three responsibilities or duties:
  1. provide info to relevant party for IR35 decision to be made
  2. provide data to relevant party for tax-NIC deduction to be made
  3. report to HMRC as normal, and declare their PSC’s income
• Helpful for fee-payers (told of their 4 duties), and end-clients (told of their 3 duties)
• Viewable here

The third piece of “detailed guidance” HMRC published late on Feb 3rd outlines how fee-payers – a “public authority, agency or other third party,” are affected by the IR35 reforms.

The guidance is:

• Approximately 800 words
• Divided into two chapters, but has nine important sections
• Helpful for informing fee-payers about their duties on tax deductions and payroll
• Helpful for giving detail on new recruits, end of contracts, the Apprenticeship Levy  
• Viewable here

Completing the Revenue’s new IR35 guidance set is a note outlining the procedural steps that public authorities must take when engaging with a PSC.

The note is:

• Approximately 400 words
• Divided into three tiers, but has five important sections
• Helpful for outlining what end-users must do when engaging PSCs directly/indirectly
• Proof that clients must retain records to support any ‘outside IR35’ decision
• Viewable here