This week's opinion: 24 February 2022

Employment status disputes are never far away. This week, we carry a report on the Adrian Chiles IR35 First-tier Tribunal decision (see page 6) and there have been two recent reports which had much to say on the topic (tinyurl.com/naoir35refrep – see page 5 – and tinyurl.com/bde7e6yy). 

This is, of course, nothing new. On my first visit to an Inland Revenue head office, nearly 40 years ago, I spoke to an inspector who had been tasked with creating a single page employment status questionnaire. It had to have an odd number of yes/no questions and taxpayers would have to answer each one. A simple majority would determine employment status. That, understandably, never saw the light of day and, although we now have the check employment status for tax (CEST) tool, I am not sure that we have really made much progress in the intervening decades. In the 1980s, personal service companies (PSCs) were a rarity except for highly-paid film stars, whereas they are now an additional – and real – complication. The problem has become a triangular one, with the three sides representing employment, self-employment, and PSCs. 

Triangular problems are notoriously hard to solve. The most famous of them, Fermat’s last theorem, took over 300 years to solve. I like to be optimistic, but I cannot help thinking that our own triangular problem will be almost as hard to resolve. It may not take 300 years, but I am sure that employment status will continue to be a regular topic of discussion in these pages long after I have passed the editorial pen to my successor – and I have no intention of doing that any time soon.