25 February 2021 
Andrea Marshall, Tax Specialist
A huge thank you to David Creasey from the University of Oxford for the Time to Talk session that he presented on 25 February 2021 on zero rating relief and how it can be applied to the purchases of software for medical and veterinary research.
This is a very informative session with lots of practical tips, so if you were unable to join the session live and would like to watch a recording (or if you would like to rewatch it) please click on this link.
One of the points that came out was looking at contracts and making sure that they were for a software deliverable, not for the services of IT specialists.
Julia has provided the following commentary on this from an IR35 perspective:
Given that the contract points towards the end product/deliverable and doesn’t create a burden on certain workers to carry out the work or be under the control of the university, an added bonus is that this arrangement indicates self-employment under IR35, reducing the risk of PAYE/NIC and Apprenticeship levy liabilities. Obviously, when checking employment status we need to look at the arrangement as a whole, but this is a strong push in the self-employment direction.
