This five part series of articles analyses potential IR35 solutions, and the challenges facing the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) as it reviews the legislation with a view to recommending an alternative.
IR35 Solutions Series
Part 1: Determining the objectives of IR35's potential replacements
Establishes IR35's original objectives, draft legislation, consultation and implementation, and
how many are being unfairly targeted.
Part 2: The evolving context of IR35
Examines the evolving context of IR35 ten years on. A new government and a bleak economic landscape.
Contractors could provide UK PLC with the workforce it needs to remain competitive and drive economic growth
Part 3: Why IR35 and its current enforcement is not working
IR35's enforcement was doomed to fail. Legislation applied incompatible employment law solutions to
a taxation problem. The requirement for self-certification resulted in IR35 being widely ignored.
Part 4: Why IR35 or any changes will never work
Highlights three options open to the OTS: do nothing; repeal IR35 and not replace it; or thirdly,
to amend IR35 or replace it with something new. Options 1 and 2 are probably politically and fiscally unacceptable, but
the range of solutions to option 3 could be unpalatable to contractors, clients and government.
Part 5: Conclusion - an interim, post-IR35 contractor tax landscape
Conclusions drawn about IR35's future and the limited options that could actually work in practice.
Further 'sticking-plasters' will not provide fairness and certainty, nor generate tax revenues.
Blog: IR35 is here to stay
Despite its flaws IR35 is likely to remain in place until the wider tax system is reformed to address
fundamental issues that will make it redundant.