Fast on the heels of the consultation published by HMRC on 10th December called ‘Onshore Employment Intermediaries - False Self Employment’ HMRC has now published guidance linked to this and recent draft Offshore Employment Intermediaries legislation.
Adrian Marlowe, Managing Director of Lawspeed, said “The key feature of the consultation and the guidance is a clear intention by HMRC to tackle tax avoidance by the use of not only false self employment but also use of personal service companies, and scope extends to professional workers and those working in the construction industry. As things stand this does have the propensity to snare genuine businesses, although the consultation does state that the intention is to avoid affecting such businesses. In my view a lot of work needs to be done to make adjustments necessary to ensure that this proposed legislation does not cause unnecessary damage.
We at Lawspeed are currently undertaking a thorough analysis of the proposals and will present our findings to attendees at our seminars to be held on 15th and 22nd January 2014 in Manchester and London respectively. At this stage the fact that this legislation has the potential for wide ranging ramifications is very obvious. It is therefore critical that the industry should consider the available options, and in line with our practice when MSC and IR35 tax legislation has been announced, we will be discussing these at our seminars.”