It’s been a long time coming but finally there is some good news for businesses surrounding the upcoming IR35 changes.
HMRC has today announced that ‘the rules, also known as IR35 will only apply to payments made for services provided on or after 6 April 2020’.
The news comes in the midst of the government’s IR35 review and will be welcome news to businesses.
As HMRC themselves acknowledge, businesses have been concerned over what payments the off-payroll working rules apply to and from when. It is because of this increasing concern from businesses that the government has decided to take action, and indeed take action before the review has concluded, in order to give businesses more time to prepare for the changes and ensure a smooth transition when these changes come into force.
As HMRC state, ‘Previously, the rules would have applied to any payments made on or after 6 April 2020, regardless of when the services were carried out.’ Now, however, with rules only applying to ‘payments made for services provided on or after 6 April 2020’ ‘organisations will only need to determine whether the rules apply for contracts they plan to continue beyond 6 April 2020’.
Therefore, this confirms that IR35 changes will not be retrospective, alleviating some of the pressure from businesses and hopefully ensuring a smoother transition for a lot of businesses.
We will now have to wait until the end of February to view the full report from this review. However, today’s announcement will be welcomed by businesses and indeed shows that the government has at least listened and acted upon some areas of criticism surrounding the changes to off-payroll working rules.
It is important to add that businesses still need to be implementing preparatory steps for IR35 changes despite the government’s announcement. For more information on how our bespoke IR35 service can help businesses to transition smoothly, please get in touch. Alternatively, you can find out more below.
Optimus Shield is the result of heavily invested research and development to tackle the issues now facing the private sector due to changes to the IR35 legislation being rolled out in April 2021.
