IT contractor demand just hit a 40-month high, the REC’s highest reading since April 2023. August scored 52.7, a second month of growth. VIQU’s Matt Collingwood calls the market encouraging. A recovery, he says, is too early to call. First Point’s David Taylor says clients feel more stable and are releasing held-back projects. However, if guaranteed hours goes ahead in January 2027, he warns, a full-time offer after 12 weeks could pause contract hiring. contractoruk.com/news/it-con…

The Foreign Office went from 211 contractors outside IR35 to 62. Nearly 90% inside. £14.8m is set aside. The bill is still open. Reasonable care is required in an IR35 status determination. A blanket "inside IR35" determination is not that. Charlie Hemsworth of Bauer & Cottrell writes for ContractorUK on the five steps to take before your client does the same contractoruk.com/public_sect…

Luke knew it was a loan. They told him the scheme was robust, put together with tax counsel, and promised nothing else would change. January 2014. They were moving. The email said the only change to his contract would be the business address. He accepted the new one. The loan clause was gone. A separate Loan Agreement was "to follow," they said. Had they sold the debt on? If nothing else was changing, what did the separate Loan Agreement say? contractoruk.com/news/contra…

Companies House has removed 151,000 addresses since March 2024. That is not the same as yours having gone. If you changed it later, or closed the company, the old home address can still be listed. In a poll conducted by ContractorUK, more than twice as many contractors had kept their home address off the register. Others only noticed there was a choice when the junk mail started. contractoruk.com/news/compan…

Old IR35, OPW Light, or New IR35. Any of those could be what Andrew Griffith means by replace IR35. IPSE's Josh Toovey was in the room for Griffith's speech last week. Writing exclusively for ContractorUK, he sets out what that pledge might actually look like, and which versions the UK's self-employed body would back. The irony is the party offering to replace the off-payroll rules is the same party that put them in place in 2017 and 2021. contractoruk.com/news/ir35-r…

HM Treasury has £4.2 billion reasons to keep IR35. That is the figure one contractor, who already beat HMRC in court, says will block a Tory replacement. Rebecca Seeley Harris LLB (Hons) LLM MSc sat with Griffith last year. She wants greater clarity, consistency and certainty for the genuinely self-employed, and for those who hire them. Danny Batey of Markel Tax is on who implemented the off-payroll rules. Many contractors will welcome the announcement. The sting is that the party that implemented it has now admitted the legislation was wrong. Given both the Tories and Reform have vowed to replace IR35, could this force Labour to act? contractoruk.com/news/conser…

Replace IR35. But with what? Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith has vowed to replace IR35 rules which have “badly let down” self-employed workers. Not reform it. Not review it. Replace it. Griffith has history here. He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the Truss government announced it would repeal the 2017 and 2021 off-payroll reforms. A move he publicly welcomed at the time. That repeal never made it into law. Now, Griffith is proposing a new system that respects the right of the self-employed to choose their status and only prevents actual abuse. The question still remains: what does a replacement for IR35 actually look like? Our full analysis will follow shortly.

Even if HMRC reaches out, do not assume it is right. Or wrong. It is reviewing 107,000 of its own calculations from 2025/26. All part of a tech flaw dating back to 2021. It still cannot say how many need correcting before they go back out. Carl Bridges, operations director at Caroola Accountancy, says even if HMRC writes, reconcile its figures to your own records before you accept or challenge. contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-t…

HMRC has named 12 more tax avoidance schemes. One of them uses an offshore trust that claims to be void from the outset if HMRC looks. So the taxman would have to open a new enquiry. HMRC disagrees. Open enquiries still stand. A former inspector told ContractorUK a private trust deed cannot override UK tax law. A legal adviser was blunter. The taxman does not need to enquire into the trust. It follows the money. Then it asks you where that money sits on your self-assessment. contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-n…

Inside IR35 was never meant to be a zero-hours problem. Under the government’s guaranteed-hours plan, an end-client may have to offer a perm contract after 12 weeks. Chances are they won’t. So the assignment gets cut short. And the umbrella can be left guaranteeing hours it cannot actually give you. FCSA’s Andy Chamberlain, with seven other bodies, has written to employment minister Kate Dearden to say Inside IR35 contractors are in the firing line. And nobody carved them out. Protect people from work they cannot escape. Don’t shorten the assignment they chose. contractoruk.com/news/zero-h…

HMRC wants 37,000 contractors to settle the loan charge. It says around a third could settle for nothing. ContractorUK asked how many of this latest tranche actually could. And nine other questions. A press officer had invited follow-ups. The reply: nothing to add beyond the press release. If a third could settle for nothing, why not just write to them and close the cases. contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-l…

Could Loan Protection and later settlement amounts have been related? Previse offered to protect a claimed £3,459.76 for £69.20 plus VAT. That is exactly 2%. Some later contractor-loan settlements were reportedly 1-2% of face value. ContractorUK has seen the offer. We do not know what sat behind it. Genuine cover on a real debt, or something else. contractoruk.com/news/loan-p…

John Healey was housing minister. His first Budget as chancellor is 28 October. John Yerou, CEO of Freelancer Financials, has one ask: reinstate Stamp Duty relief. He does not hold out much hope. Wider fiscal pressures, he writes, will win again. What has changed, he writes, is the lending. 1% deposits. Multiples up to 6.5x. Contractors on three clients in one week. Going direct to a high street lender remains difficult. contractoruk.com/news/budget…

Exclusive: about £18 a week extra. Then £3,459.76 described as a loan. Amanda worked eight weeks in 2016. She already had the job. She was not even a higher-rate taxpayer. She says she never even saw the Master Loan Agreement. Her accountant asked the question in December 2017. It still stands. How on earth is someone’s salary considered a loan? Our exclusive is live. contractoruk.com/news/contra…

IR35 was built to raise tax. It may have inadvertently raised the government’s costs instead. They banned the PSC. Then paid a consultancy two or three times the rate for the same desk. Not a determination. A blanket. The work stayed. Josh Toovey, head of policy and research at IPSE, puts a price on the taxpayer side. Eight firms took £8.56bn of public-sector work from 2019 to 2025, per Tussell. Consultancy spend then rose 62%. Another £400m for getting the 2017 rules wrong. Did IR35 raise revenue, or just the consultancy bill? contractoruk.com/news/ir35-p…

A historic contractor loan may have changed country more than once. The Isle of Man FSA has now told ContractorUK the rules can change at each stage. Making the loan is not the same as buying the book. Selling it off the island is another set of rules again. The name on today's letter may not be the name that made it. Different country. Different rules. Same demand for the money? contractoruk.com/news/isle-o…

Andy Burnham said the self-employed would no longer be an afterthought. The Budget will show if he meant it. That was 2015. He said Labour must be the party of the self-employed too, and that every policy would be considered for its impact on them. He is PM now. Budget day is 28 October. The ask is an IR35 reset. Not another tweak. The market default is Inside, even where the role is genuinely Outside, because clients will not wear the HMRC risk. Five years into private sector reform. Same problem. contractoruk.com/news/budget…

Your umbrella took PAYE and NICs from your pay. That does not mean you paid HMRC. Yet. Paying the taxman is the umbrella’s job. What if it cannot, and why? That question has three answers, writes Andy Chamberlain at the FCSA, and they are not the same problem. A scheme, a cash-flow crash, or a genuine mistake. Joint and Several Liability does not treat those three the same way. contractoruk.com/news/why-um…

A late payer can sit on a £1,000 invoice for 30 days and owe you £9.73. Twelve people at the Small Business Commissioner are meant to police that. The Commercial Payments Bill was meant to change this, but the Lords voted down the 30-day cap. Adam Home, managing director of Safe Collections, writes for ContractorUK on the other fixes they killed, and what those twelve are up against. contractoruk.com/news/late-p…

The HMRC consultation on a new ‘reckless’ tax offence does not mention IR35, umbrellas or disguised remuneration once. That silence should not be read as exclusion. HMRC wants the offence to cover all direct tax matters. And it is not after genuine mistakes. ‘Reckless’ means you knew a statement might be untrue and went ahead anyway without reasonable justification. Which is why the unanswered question matters. If a tax return relies on an IR35 assessment, or an umbrella arrangement, that later turns out to be wrong, could HMRC argue the contractor wasn’t merely careless, but ‘reckless’? Dan Mepham, managing director of SG Accounting, sets out the IR35 question the consultation never answers. contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-r… Consultation closes Sunday. Email: asres.consult@hmrc.gov.uk