Category: Employment Law, Taxation and Legislation for Contractors

The IR35 legislation affecting freelance contractors should be scrapped after failing for two main reasons, it has been said.

Enquiries into IR35 are time-consuming and can take many years, pointed out Seb Maley, freelancer services manager at Qdos Consulting, in an article for Contractor UK.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) does not have the resources for these investigations, he pointed out, suggesting this is the first reason for the failure of the legislation.

Secondly, Mr Maley suggested that professional freelancers have increasingly been able to speak out against IR35 and are more educated about the legislation.

"IR35 is far from ideal. It's a nuisance that causes contractors to expend a few hundreds of pounds each year on contract reviews and insurances that could be better applied elsewhere," he commented.

However, the expert added that IR35 is unlikely to be completely abolished and would instead be re-created.

Mr Maley has previously called IR35 "tedious" and "not a precise science".

Posted by Sarah Putt