Taxation logo taxation mission text

Since 1927 the leading authority on tax law, practice and administration

Fine suggests the IR35 public sector rules are not working, say advisers

02 August 2021
Issue: 4803 / Categories: News

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been issued with a tax bill of £87.9m due to incorrectly assessing the IR35 status of contractors engaged since 2017. This was despite it using HMRC’s check employment status for tax (CEST) tool. According to the DWP annual accounts for 2020-21 an HMRC resulted in an ‘agreement on historic errors and acceptance by DWP of a liability for missing tax/NI plus interest for the financial years 2017-18 (£21.1m) 2018-19 (£36.7m) and 2019-20 (£29.7m)’. The £87.9m also includes a liability for 2020-21 of £0.4m.

Blick Rothenberg director Robert Salter said: ‘It is almost laughable that one public organisation fines another in this situation - surely the DWP would have consulted with HMRC to get this right. The fine means the money is going around “one big public sector circle”. It...

If you or your firm subscribes to Taxation.co.uk, please click the login box below:

If you are not a subscriber but are a registered user or have a free trial, please enter your details in the following boxes:

Alternatively, you can register free of charge to read a limited amount of subscriber content per month.
Once you have registered, you will receive an email directing you back to read this item in full.

Please reach out to customer services at +44 (0) 330 161 1234 or 'customer.services@lexisnexis.co.uk' for further assistance.

back to top icon