Contractors can access a range of new self-help tools and a paid-for annual ‘compliance passport’ from new website IR35 Buddy.
The brainchild of former oil and gas contractor and entrepreneur Alf Gordon, IR35 Buddy is a not-for-profit industry initiative to provide limited company contractors with a “self-regulatory tool”, which the site’s founders hope will “end the confusion” over IR35.
“IR35 Buddy has been created to cut through the confusion surrounding this legislation and help genuine freelancers and contractors to preserve and maintain their standing as legitimate one-person companies,” notes Gordon.
“From the outset, our vision has been to work with HMRC, leading IR35 legal experts, UK service providers and the freelance community to clear up a lot of the confusion surrounding the regulations,” he adds.
The site provides an online tool that can be used to determine a contractor’s business entity tests (BETs) score. Next, a contractor’s contract is then reviewed by an industry expert to determine whether the contract puts the contractor inside IR35 and, if it does, highlights remedial action required.
Finally, contractors can apply online for a ‘compliance passport’. The passport, for which contractors pay a fee, is issued if the contractor is clearly outside IR35, or if the contractor takes recommended action to reduce their IR35 risk if it is judged to be high.
According to Gordon, the passport “will enable HMRC, contractors, agents and service providers to be assured that the correct tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are being paid to HMRC each year.”
Other services include a ‘substitution buddy’, a ‘contractual compliance buddy’ and a ‘premises buddy’, all of which are intended to ensure contractors score in the low risk band of the business entity tests.
Contractors can also check their IR35 risk by using ContractorCalculator’s free Online IR35 Test, which provides contractors with an assessment of their IR35 status based on case law and the results of thousands of actual IR35 cases.