Q. A locum doctor working in Public sector mentioned that they were previously investigated for IR35 and they passed the test. It would be useful to have more info about this, as this would help all locum doctors to fight against IR35 insanity from April 2017.
A. After any IR35 enquiry nowadays, HMRC give a guarantee that, provided circumstances remain unchanged, then they will not raise another IR35 enquiry for at least 3 years & that the contractor can rely upon that opinion. We do not know, however, how this will interact with the public sector off-payroll rules effective from 06.04.17. It would appear that all public sector workers, who perform or are obligated to perform the services personally, will, in the first instance, have to be subjected to the employment status tests generated by HMRC’s ESS tool. Should an opinion contrary to HMRC’s previous ruling be given, then the locum doctor would have strong grounds of appeal, provided that there were no material changes in the way they were working since the date the previous IR35 enquiry was closed.
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