[varispeed]

The plumber example actually undermines your argument. Plumbers typically provide services to individuals, not businesses, which places them outside the scope of Chapter 10 entirely. They can self-declare as outside IR35. But if that same plumber were delivering services to a corporation meeting Chapter 10 criteria, the client would have to perform a status determination, and depending on their risk appetite they could absolutely deem that engagement as inside IR35 to cover their compliance exposure. IR35 has nothing to do with number of clients, type of trade, or whether you are a plumber or a software developer. Presenting plumbers as inherently outside IR35 by nature of their work is misleading.

You dismissed the tax yield comparison as "a Communist Party pamphlet." That is not a rebuttal. If the stated purpose of IR35 is protecting tax revenue, and the structure generating the most tax for the Treasury is the one being constrained while the structure generating the least is left untouched, then the policy is not achieving what it claims to achieve. You have not addressed this because you cannot. You say the three workers create "completely different contracts, working structures and tax arrangements" and that my "brain won't allow me to see the answer." The working structure is identical. The contracts differ because the law requires them to differ depending on who owns the supplying company. The tax arrangements follow from that. You keep pointing at the consequences of the policy and presenting them as the justification for it. That is circular reasoning.

You have repeatedly described how you think IR35 works, inaccurately in several places, while avoiding the question I am actually asking. I am not asking about the mechanics. I am asking about the design. Why does the deemed-employment test activate based on who owns the company supplying the labour, rather than being applied universally to all companies supplying labour in identical working conditions?

Resorting to personal attacks and dismissing inconvenient arguments as "rants" is not the same as answering the question.

[scott_w]

> Plumbers typically provide services to individuals, not businesses

> But if that same plumber were delivering services to a corporation meeting Chapter 10 criteria, the client would have to perform a status determination

So? You’ve spent 2 days arguing it’s about ownership structure and something about classism and now suddenly you agree with me that it’s actually about the specific nature of the contract? Make up your mind instead of just deciding what undermines my argument. You don’t even seem to understand your own.

> You dismissed the tax yield comparison

Because it’s irrelevant to what the law is trying to achieve which is to ensure an employer/employee cannot reduce the tax they pay. Whether it’s the optimal tax strategy is a different question. Given you have no clue about your own argument, I’m not going to take your word that it’s actually better to allow Inside IR35 to pay less tax.

> The working structure is identical.

There are literally three different types of contract, which creates different working structures.

> You have repeatedly described how you think IR35 works, inaccurately in several places

And yet at no point have you actually pointed out where. Instead you run victory laps.

[varispeed]

I have not agreed with you. I said the plumber providing services to individuals falls outside Chapter 10 entirely, which is why your example was irrelevant. I then pointed out that if that same plumber provided services to a corporation, they would be subject to the same status determination as anyone else, because IR35 does not care what trade you are in. You claimed plumbers fall outside IR35 because of the nature of their work. They do not. When providing services to individuals they self-declare their status, which can still be challenged. When providing services to a corporation meeting Chapter 10 criteria, the client performs the determination. The distinction is about who the services are provided to, not what the trade is. Those are different things.

Where you have been inaccurate, since you asked: you claimed IR35 does not apply to self-employed workers as though that were a meaningful distinction. You claimed number of clients determines IR35 status. It does not. Each engagement is assessed individually. You presented plumbers as categorically outside IR35 by nature of their trade. They are not, as above. You have consistently described IR35 as a simple checklist when it is an engagement-by-engagement assessment triggered by the ownership structure of the supplying company.

You say "three different types of contract create different working structures." The working structure is the day-to-day reality of how the work is performed. Three people doing the same work, at the same desk, on the same equipment, during the same hours, for the same client, have the same working structure. They have different contracts because the law imposes different requirements depending on who owns the company supplying the labour. The contract is the product of the legal framework, not the other way around.

You say the law is trying to "ensure an employer/employee cannot reduce the tax they pay." A worker running their own company is not an employee reducing anything. They are a business owner retaining the value of their own labour. The legislation starts from the assumption that a worker's natural state is employment and their company is an artificial structure to be looked through. That assumption is never applied to any other type of business. Nobody asks whether a consultancy's corporate structure is artificial, or whether its employees would be the client's employees "if engaged directly." The question is only asked when the worker owns the business, because the underlying assumption is that workers do not legitimately own businesses - they merely operate through them. That is the class assumption I have been describing from the start.

Same question, still unanswered: why is the test scoped by ownership of the supplying company rather than applied universally?

[scott_w]

> you claimed IR35 does not apply to self-employed workers as though that were a meaningful distinction

No I didn’t. I wouldn’t make this claim because I asked an accountant exactly this question 8 years ago, so I know this is not the case. Clearly you can’t read so it’s a waste of my Friday night trying to argue with someone who insists on being wrong and displays no reading comprehension.

> Same question, still unanswered: why is the test scoped by ownership of the supplying company rather than applied universally?

One last time: because it’s not. We have literally just discussed the plumber example where, depending on the customer, working contract, etc. you agreed with me that IR35 scope is not applied based solely on the ownership of the company. I really do not know what to say any more. You are asserting two opposing things are true at the same time.