News of the new cabinet in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition must be music to the ears of contractors and freelancers. So says Brookson, one of the leading providers of accountancy, tax advice and support services to contractors and self employed professionals.
The ‘fairer tax’ messages from the new Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) and a Business Secretary (Vince Cable), who has previously supported attempts to have IR35 repealed, give genuine reason for optimism that the tax and legislative environment could become more supportive for the flexible workforce.
Martin Hesketh, managing director of Brookson, said that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition is potentially very good news for the flexible workforce. “In our view, the previous Government did not understand the flexible workforce and failed to recognise both the value of this workforce and the variety of populations within it.”
The Labour Government’s ‘homogeneous’ view of this critical workforce encompassed everything from low paid, low skilled, potentially vulnerable ‘temps’ who needed protection from exploitation to highly skilled, highly paid self-employed professionals who needed encouragement and support to enable them to provide their valuable services.
In Brookson’s view, this resulted in many instances of ill advised, badly drafted, one size fits all legislation which often failed to protect the vulnerable and generally failed to support and encourage entrepreneurial freelancers.
“IR35, the Managed Service Company (MSC) legislation and the Agency Workers Directive are but three examples of legislative failures when it comes to supporting the highly skilled end of the self-employed market,” continued Martin Hesketh.
“The change in Government provides a terrific opportunity for the value and makeup of the flexible workforce to be genuinely understood by policy makers and an appropriate framework of protections, obligations and encouragements to be implemented to look after the vulnerable and encourage the genuinely self-employed.”
While the new Government has yet to publish detailed proposals to change these rules, and given the scale of some of the other issues being faced, Brookson believes it is time for contractors and freelancers to be optimistic.
“Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have made some very positive noises recently about the flexible workforce and they need to create a fair and encouraging environment for such workers to operate in,” said Martin Hesketh.
“We will be reviewing the coalition’s newly published policy document and looking forward to the forthcoming Queen's speech, but we are optimistic about seeing something positive and supportive for contractors.”
For more information on the Brookson, please call 0845 688 0681 or visit: www.brookson.co.uk
