Pin the tail on the donkey

KEY POINTS

• Intermediary 1 will have to operate PAYE and National Insurance.
• Potential increased burden for employees.
• Possible constriction of the market.
• Short timescale to put new procedures in place.

The development of the rules affecting contractors from the March 1999 press release that became known as IR35 through managed service companies to the May 2013 consultation document Offshore Employment Intermediaries was traced in my article Pass the parcel.

I suggested that there was a resemblance to the party game as it would perhaps be played at Hogwarts with no one quite knowing whether the next move would be a pleasant or nasty surprise.

However with hindsight it is more like a Hogwartian game of pin the tail on the donkey....