19 March 2019 
Caroline Jones, Employment tax director
HMRC has opened a consultation into off-payroll working rules from April 2020 when the rules will be extended to certain parts of the private sector. This follows the previous consultation and responses, published 29 October 2018. It is intended that the new rules will not extend to those companies, which qualify as ‘small’. This means that if a company meets 2 out of 3 conditions it will not be caught by the new rules. The conditions are:
It is proposed that where the business is unincorporated the deciding factors as to whether they are required to operate the new rules may be based either on turnover and employee numbers or businesses that have either more than 50 employees or an annual turnover in excess of £10.2 million.
The consultation, which closes 28 May 2019 asks 17 questions, covering subjects such as whether the status decision should be shared with the off-payroll worker as well as the party they are contracted with, whether there are any potential unintended consequences or impacts collecting the tax and NICs from the first agency in the chain as well as questions in relation to supply chain liabilities and pension contributions.
It is understood, that in order to support these changes, HMRC’s current Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) is to be revised and improved, which should be useful to those universities who use this to help determine the status of their workers and those engaged via Personal Service Companies. Given that the off-payroll rules have applied to the HE sector for nearly 2 years this is an opportunity for universities to share their experiences to feed back into the process. BUFDG has been invited to attend HMRC’s off-payroll forum in April. If you have any comments please contact Caroline.
