The PCG have now officialy given up the chase to get the decision of the appeal against IR35 reversed. They were in need of about £700 000 in cash and pledges in order to maintain the cause.
The members of the PCG were unfortuanately not able to raise the funds and thus the PCG has said that for now they would not be following on with the fight against IR35 in the courts. They will however be continuing with trying to get as much of the legislation changed as possible, through highlighting 'grey areas' and making people aware of the problems with the legislation.
The decision on the legislation did not come as a surprise to anyone, but most of the contracting community did hope that there might be an outside chance of the legislation being scrapped, this however was not the predicted result.
The PCG did take on The Revenue at the Judicial Review in March 2001 and then again in December and it was not through lack of trying or committment that the appeal has failed, it has now come down to merely one of numbers, and those numbers just aren't working out.
The loss at the appeal has cerainly made many people sit up and take note that things are going to change and that it is not going to be acceptable to hope that IR35 goes away, as it is now here for good!