Tolley's IR35 Defence Strategies

David Smith is a partner in Accountax and as the leading tax adviser to the Professional Contractors Group has been very much involved with IR35 from the beginning; it must have been difficult to keep it from being an obsession and this book of over 400 pages shows a remarkable dedication to the subject even if half the book is the appendices – the legislation the case law.

His closeness to the Professional Contractors Group of course means that he sees the legislation (the Inland Revenue is now trying to persuade us not to call it 'IR35' but that is still what it calls it on its own website) not so much as anti-avoidance legislation but as an intolerable restriction on economic freedom. Indeed he starts by comparing it with the poll tax.

David Smith is almost certainly right when he suggests that...