[TamDenholm]

And as long as you're running a proper business with multiple clients, your own equipment, your own hours, etc, then you dont fall foul of IR35. If you are however basically being treated the same as a PAYE employee would, 1 client, their office, their equipment, their hours, their conditions, etc, then you're dodging tax and thats the point of IR35.

[Silhouette]

As long as you're running a proper business you shouldn't fall foul of IR35. Sadly that won't stop a lot of risk-averse large clients insisting on paying you through an umbrella company. And it won't stop many other clients from insisting on money-costing and time-wasting IR35 assessments so they can take out insurance policies. And even if you don't have any of that to deal with it won't make you feel any better if HMRC decide for any reason to launch an IR35 investigation that will eat a shocking amount of your time and money even if you are eventually found to have done absolutely nothing wrong. All of this risk has a chilling effect on this whole sector of the economy.

Even if they're determined to keep IR35 the government could at least clarify their intent for people like contractors who work with a single client but for a limited time. Right now I have the sense from my own network that there are a lot of games being played in that sector to try and avoid being caught by IR35 because no-one really knows if they're supposed to be. If the government wants to charge people who are working as flexible labour through a PSC the same taxes as permanent employees then they should at least be honest about it and accept responsibility if that flexible workforce then shrinks and economic damage results. Or if they want to incentivise the flexible workforce then they should give clear guidance on how long is considered to still be "temporary" and won't be treated as disguised employment (even though the "employee" probably lacks any of the job security and benefits of a real employee as most contractors do) to remove the risk for many genuine short-term workers and increase the efficiency of the contracting market.

[gadders]

And we're only seeing it from the IT sector point of view. IR35 also wrecked the HGV driver market and is one of the reasons for the shortage of drivers.