IR35
IR35 is an ambiguous, contentious and much debated aspect of UK tax law. It has an ongoing impact on the contracting industry and those who provide services through UK limited companies or to UK companies.
Here are some key points on the part IR35 plays in your company’s engagement with Alirity:
- The relationship an Associate has with Alirity is a business-to-business relationship, where Alirity is the client.
- We are well-acquainted with IR35 legislation, and our contracts are drafted with it in mind.
- We cannot give legal advice or provide any commitment to the IR35 compliance of your engagement. Your company is responsible for understanding your legal/tax obligations, including in relation to IR35.
- We don’t produce a Status Determination Statement (SDS) for our contracts for two reasons:
- Alirity falls within the scope of the Small Companies Exemption;
- Our engagements with End Clients are contracts for services and therefore outside the scope of IR35 (ie don’t need to be defined as either inside or outside IR35). However, we will pass any Status Determination Statement (SDS) received from an End Client on to you in accordance with our obligation.
- Supervision, direction and control: We expect Associates to have the experience necessary to perform the service as contracted. We trust that you will make the right decisions within the scope of that service to achieve the contracted outcomes. We nonetheless reasonably expect certain information from you so that we can be sure the service you are providing is on track and risks are being appropriately managed (eg. regular status reporting) and that invoices are in line with the payment provisions in the contract (eg timesheets where applicable).
- Substitution: Most of our contracts provide a right of substitution. Refer to your own framework and SOW for the specifics of how this applies to your contract.
As we can’t give advice, there is limited additional information we can provide. However here are some links that may be of use:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-off-payroll-working-ir35
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax
https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/
Dave Chaplin is an expert on IR35 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-chaplin-63113 Some Associate companies consider tax investigation and tax liability insurance, such as these ones from Qdos https://www.qdoscontractor.com