The fifth meeting of the IR35 Forum scheduled for 18th January had to be postponed due to more time being needed by two subsets of the Forum charged with establishing where where there is agreement and disagreement in the interpretation of various IR35 scenarios, and discussing the operational side of IR35 and case administration.
Meetings of the two subsets, hosted by HMRC, took place on 11th January. At the first meeting HMRC reported that it has been busy identifying those groups affected by IR35 and progressing with operational processes. During the second meeting the Revenue detailed their opinion on the IR35 scenarios and where there was either agreement, disagreement or where further information was required. The department also expressed their views on the proposal of a tiered business test designed to identify those contractors who would be deemed a low IR35 enquiry risk and went on to reveal a short test it had devised for further consideration.
The meeting has now been pencilled in for 21st February to allow the time needed to deliver the extra work and thereby stay on course to give birth to an improved IR35 administration by April 2012.
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