The Big Picture - September 2019

The final legislation is due out any day now and we are expecting it to be in line with the draft legislation that was released in June. Unlike other legislative changes, the sector largely appears to be preparing themselves in advance for this one. We have been invited in to many agencies and end clients to discuss these changes, sharing our advice on how we feel agencies and end clients should prepare for next April. Our headline message is simple; get familiar with IR35 and understand your contractor population to identify your risk.

One outcome of this change will be the increased need for IR35 reviews which is why our online IR35 Review portal, IR35 Comply, has been a big talking point during these meetings. A thorough and robust IR35 review process will help prove to HMRC that all parties have taken reasonable care when determining an IR35 status. This is just one of the reasons why an agency should use a credible IR35 review service, other reasons are explored in more detail in How IR35 Comply can add value to your end clients.

As expected, there has also been a lot of misinterpretation of the legislation, some of which we’ve been exploring in our series of MythBuster articles. In this month’s newsletter we discuss the small business exemption; who it applies to and what it means regarding any potential liability.

In other news we share with you the amazing results from our latest customer satisfaction survey which was carried out by our umbrella employees. At PayStream we appreciate that if you stand still you are at risk of being overtaken, so we ensure that our service continues to move forward. And the best way we have found to do that, is to listen to what our contractors have to say. This is why we believe we consistently score well on all of our customer satisfaction surveys and why 94% of our contractors would recommend PayStream to a colleague.