Information that the federal government has launched a session to deal with the ‘double taxation’ of IR35 underneath the off-payroll working guidelines has been universally welcomed.

The session, launched at this time, will discover methods HMRC can account for taxes already paid by a contractor when calculating the tax legal responsibility owed by a enterprise within the occasion of non-compliance.

As issues stand, HMRC doesn’t issue within the tax already paid by the contractor throughout the engagement. It means companies (that are accountable for IR35 underneath the off-payroll working guidelines) are overtaxed, ought to HMRC discover non-compliance.

The session will run for 8 weeks, till twenty second June.

Qdos CEO, Seb Maley, commented: “That is doubtlessly game-changing. The double-taxation of IR35 underneath the off-payroll guidelines is a large drawback. HMRC doesn’t offset the tax already paid by a contractor when handing a enterprise a tax invoice. Put in another way, it means HMRC collects way more than it ought to. It’s morally fallacious.

“A session marks progress. In concept, it’s a difficulty which might and ought to be solved comparatively simply too. Even so, I’m amazed that the federal government has refused to look into this till now. Westminster knew this was an issue a while in the past, however has performed nothing about it.

“The double taxation of IR35 provides needlessly risk-averse companies one more reason to not have interaction contractors – as a result of in the event that they’re discovered to be non-compliant, HMRC will over-tax them.”