Arrangements were equivalent to employment contract

Alan Parry provided his services as a football commentator to BSkyB through his personal services company – the taxpayer - for many years.

HMRC issued determinations to the taxpayer on the basis that ITEPA 2003 Part 8 Ch 8 applied – the IR35 legislation.

The First-tier Tribunal had to decide whether had the Mr Parry’s services been supplied directly under a hypothetical contract between him and BSkyB he would have been regarded as an employee.

The starting point was first to identify the terms of the actual contracts and second the terms of the hypothetical contracts.

On the actual contracts the tribunal found that broadly the taxpayer was obliged to provide the taxpayer’s services to BSkyB as and when required but only for a limited number of matches a year. In return BSkyB was obliged to pay the taxpayer the fees...