In a stunning development last night, Stephen Barclay, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury reported to the House of Commons “I can also announce this evening, madam Deputy Speaker, that the government is postponing the reforms to the off-payroll working rules, IR35, from April 2020 to the 6th April 2021.”
Although he went on to say, “This is a deferral in response to the ongoing spread of Covid-19 to help businesses and individuals. This is a deferral, not a cancellation and the government remains committed to reintroducing this policy to ensure people working like employees but through their own limited company pay broadly the same tax as those employed directly.”, this has an immediate impact.
In addition, we would hope that there will be the opportunity for a proper and measured reform of the IR35 rules especially with the House of Lord review due to be published soon.
For those of you who have contract up to 31st March and were then expected to either go inside IR35 or work through an umbrella company, you should urgently contract your engager or intermediary to define the next steps.
For those of you who have already been mandated to work through an umbrella based on the original HMRC timelines around payments rather than services, you should urgently contract your engager or intermediary to ask to revert back to the previous PSC arrangements.
As you will be aware, there are fast-moving changes to the tax regime and business support from the government and we will be setting up a channel to keep you informed of developments.