HMRC

It feels negative to start the New Year off with the following health warning about HMRC's new report into the impact of the IR35.

Despite the potentially illuminating title ‘Short-term effects of the 2021 off-payroll working rules’, this [research](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/short-term-effects-of-the-2021-off-payroll-working-rules-reform-for-private-and-voluntary-sector-organisations) provides little of value to the wider affected population – other than perhaps to serve as a reminder that HMRC are very much confident about their approach to the reforms and will seek to police the legislation. Also conspicuously absent is the cost of umbrella contracting which increased significantly as a direct result of the IR35 reforms. (N.B this practice is cited in the report but is underplayed) And what about monthly administration costs; and the cost of taking on contractors into staff roles? We find this quite alarming as in our experience, on too many occasions CEST produces indeterminate results and so cannot be relied upon for the robust and accurate determinations that businesses need to meet their legislative obligations. But if only half of clients found implementation “easy,” why did the other half not? Surely, though, this outlay of between £1.00 and £999.00 as a “one-off” caused by the IR35 reforms cannot take into account the evident