How accountants can help you with IR35 difficulties
IR35.
Just the name itself raises the hairs on the arms of contractors across the UK, causing them to run in fear from the HMRC changes that have caused such unrest across professionals in all sectors.
We’ve had our fair share of enquiries about this, and we think it would be handy if we outlined a few points that our clients, and contractors in general, should take note of;
1 – An Accountant cannot give you the kind of IR35 advice you need.
We love what we do, and we certainly love our clients, but we will not give IR35 advice if we’re asked for it. Why?
Because we are accountants – Employment Status Specialists are the IR35 specialists, as this falls under the case law and legislation that they have to know in order to do their jobs effectively.
We will always do what we can for our clients, 100%, and so if they ask us for IR35 advice, we will tell them who to go to, what to look for and refer the most reputable specialists that we can.
2 – A good accountant won’t even try to give you this advice
Accountants are in the business of managing your finances and preparing your accounts for HMRC and business purposes. We are not in the business of offering business employment advice, and it isn’t part of our daily lives to read up on employment legislation changes, etc.
Where accountants come into the picture is when arranging a financially balanced stable and efficient cash flow – ensuring your company is paying the appropriate dividends, taxes and rates is required by law.
We would be incredibly wary of any accountant that claimed to be able to give you this advice to an expert level (unless they’re clearly accredited), and would seek holistic & reputable advice from specialists if you have any queries.
Any accountant who tries to offer you IR35 advice doesn’t have your, or your company’s best interest at heart, and shouldn’t be who you go to for advice such as this.
3 – Tax Investigation Insurance
Like we said, we are never going to put ourselves into the position where we will offer you IR35 advice, it’s not our proverbial cup of tea.
What we can do, and will, is recommended you look into various forms of Tax Investigation Insurance.
What this kind of professional protection does for you, is in the event that HMRC decided to investigate you or your business, is you would be provided with legal defense counsel in the event HMRC comes knocking. This is very much a case of ‘if it ever happens….’ and we were raised to always be prepared.
Here at William Klien, we love what we do. We are proud to be accountancy experts and deliver a reliable & respected service to our clients. The issues that are arising with IR35 are going to cause problems for some of our contractor & self employed clients, but we are on hand to refer you to the speciality experts, assess your current accounts setup and give simple & efficient advice in such a turbulent time.