HMRC were due to release details of their IR35 business test, designed to help contractors and freelancers “self-assess” their status, on April 6th. As this date fell on a public holiday the release has been delayed. HMRC and IR35 Forum members have variously said the delays would be “a week or few”, and that their guidance would arrive “later this month” – so we can reasonably expect the business test to go live soon.
We summarised the current situation with regards to the IR35 Forum’s disagreements and how the business test will run over on Freelance Advisor -
The test will focus not on individual contracts as before, but on a freelancer or contractor’s entire limited company. After much haggling over the weighting and wording of questions took place at the Forum’s last meeting, the test will be posted on HMRC’s website on a trial basis shortly.
Alongside the test, HMRC will also publish six example scenarios. Two that fall outside IR35, two that fall inside, one the begins outside IR35 but later moves inside (much like the IR35 split decision we saw late last year), and most amusing of all, one that is a “grey area”.
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The six example scenarios are from a total of seventeen that HMRC has identified – they have refused to publish all seventeen for fear it would give too much away about their assessment process (and we wouldn’t want that, would we?).
We’ll have full coverage once HMRC and the IR35 Forum finalise and release their business test and example scenarios.
Photo by Hitchster
