Have Your Say: Should contractors be taxed like employees but have no rights?

IR35 Test

When you pay tax for something, you should get the benefit as well. But this doesn't apply to contractors, who can be asked to pay taxes like employees but who get none of the benefits employees do.

Contractors have no job security, no sick pay, no holiday pay, and they have to pay for their own equipment. Still we are asked under certain circumstances to pay tax like employees who have all these benefits.

The Government was supposed to provide employee rights legislation as a complement to IR35. But somehow, the Government never got around to it. And if we want to obtain those rights, we have to bear all the expense and difficulty of going to the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

Should we pay tax like employees when we get none of their privileges? Is it fair? What do you think?

Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2007

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Readers Comments...

This article has 1 comment.

Speech Bubble Added: Fri, 23 Nov 2007

Of course not! The IR35 tax is totally unfair for those caught by IR35. Contractors don't want to have rights, are prepared to take the risk of working flexibly, and should thus be taxed accordingly.

Susan, London.

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