Crawford Temple, CEO of Professional Passport, the UK’s largest independent assessor of payment intermediary compliance is calling for a specialist group to be set up to steer policy on umbrellas
At a BEIS Committee meeting in The House of Commons on 21st Feb 2023, Mark Jenkinson, MP for Workington reiterated that IR35 has created a business of tax avoidance by certain umbrella operators. The response by Kevin Hollinrake MP suggests that measures will be introduced shortly, perhaps signalling as soon as this month’s Budget, to help stop a race to the bottom.Addressing Mark Jenkinson’s comments, Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thurston and Malton and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business said he: "…had a meeting on this yesterday with my counterpart in the Treasury. We are both keen to move this forward very quickly. You will be hearing an announcement very shortly in terms of what we intend to do. You will hear the outcome in terms of the evidence base we have so far. We will be making our response to that clear very shortly afterwards.... ...we are keen to make sure we have more control over what some of these organisations are doing.
Crawford Temple said: "It was interesting to hear the discussion in the Commons around umbrellas and tax avoidance but any action is long overdue. HMRC is clearly struggling to interpret the responses to the Call for Evidence as it is now over a year since the consultation closed and we have yet to hear from them. This reinforces the level of complexity in the market and therefore Professional Passport is calling for an action group to be set up.“The group would consist of a specialist number of experts from the sector to work with policymakers and inform and assist them in developing the right policy that addresses non-compliance, action and visible enforcement. Working together is the only way forward to raise standards and stamp out malpractice.”
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