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IR35 changes – April 2020

The April 2020 changes to IR35

Since late 2017, HMG has indicated its intention to extend similar changes to the private sector, although the April 2020 changes will differ in some respects from the measures that currently apply to the public sector. From April 2020, the private sector client will be responsible for determining whether the freelancer is a “disguised employee” and therefore to be treated as if an employee. If the entity in the labour supply chain which pays the fees to the PSC is not also the client of the PSC, then the fee payer will be responsible for operating PAYE. If the client determines that IR35 does not apply, then the client or the fee payer will pay the PSC gross.

However, these new rules will not apply to all private sector clients. The new legislation will provide that clients which are “small” entities will not be involved in having to determine freelancers’ status and, whether or not the client is also the fee payer, the fee payer will not need to operate PAYE. For this purpose, “small” means that if the client is corporate, the rules will not apply to it if it falls within at least two of the following:

· Its annual turnover does not exceed £10.2 million;

· Its balance sheet total does not exceed £5.1 million;

· The number of its employees does not exceed an average of 50 in the year.

If the client is non-corporate and it is “small”, the rules will similarly not apply to it. The criteria for “small” have not yet been made clear, but they are expected to follow fairly closely the criteria for corporate entities.

This means that where a client in the private sector is “small”, the responsibility for determining the freelancer’s status will remain with the PSC as at present.

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