Chancellor Philip Hammond unveiled Budget 2018 on Monday 29 October 2018 – his last before Brexit. Overall, the reception to the Budget has been greeted with mixed emotions, but it is fair to say that some of the announcements are more positive than many predicted.
According to a Freedom for Information request by contractor resource firm Contractor Calculator, HMRC has admitted to not holding any detailed evidence that its own IR35 status check tool was tested for accuracy.
It’s close to a year since the government rolled out off-payroll working rules for the public sector in April 2017. The government has implied over the last few months that if the public sector IR35 rules work, they would be adapted and rolled out to the private sector.
Since the off-payroll rules for intermediaries in the public sector came into effect on 6 April 2017, there seems to have been a mass exodus of contractors and temporary workers from the public sector. IT and technology have suffered in particular, with government projects reportedly facing delays.
HMRC released its Employment Status Service (ESS) tool in March to help provide clarity around IR35, and to assist public sector clients and agencies in assessing the IR35 status of their off-payroll workers. There has been plenty of controversy surrounding it, with some experts claiming it is inaccurate whilst HMRC jumps to its defence.
Outlined in an NHS Improvement update, the NHS backtracked on its previous position that all NHS workers providing their services through personal service companies (PSCs) were to be deemed as inside IR35.
