[varispeed]

You have finally stated your position plainly: IR35 exists because a worker running their own company would pay less tax than an employee in the same working arrangement. Thank you. Now let me explain why that reasoning is exactly the class assumption I have been describing.

The worker is not an employee. They are a business owner. Every limited company in the country pays its directors a combination of salary and dividends, and pays corporation tax on profits. That is not a loophole. That is how companies work. The only reason it is treated as a problem is that the person who owns this particular company also does the work, and the assumption is that a person who does work cannot legitimately own a business - they are merely disguising employment.

That assumption flips every principle of good business on its head. For any normal business, having repeat customers is a sign of quality and reliability. For a worker-owned business, it is evidence of disguised employment. For any normal business, long-term client relationships are commercially valuable. For a worker-owned business, they are suspicious. The entire framework starts from the premise that the business is not real and works backwards from there.

You say the consultancy's employees "already pay full Income Tax and National Insurance" as though that settles it. The small business owner earning more than both the employee and the consultancy worker will pay more tax, because they earn more and do not have the instruments available to larger companies exempt from this regime to reduce their tax burden - transfer pricing, offshore margin routing, intercompany structures. The framing asks you to compare only the worker's personal tax position to an employee's, while ignoring that the entity capturing the surplus in the consultancy model contributes far less to the Treasury. That is designed to make employees resent the business owner while the consultancy extracting more value and contributing less tax is never part of the conversation. You have just demonstrated this perfectly.

You say I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth. I am not. The ownership structure triggers the regime. The contract and working arrangements determine the outcome of the assessment within that regime. These are two separate stages. The first stage - who gets subjected to this test at all - is determined by ownership. A large plumbing company sending an employee to the same job under the same conditions is never tested. That is the asymmetry. You keep describing the second stage as though it answers my question about the first.

[scott_w]

> The worker is not an employee.

Yes they are. That’s the point of IR35 and why it’s not a class issue. If the person wants to be a business owner, then operate as a self-employed contractor and not an employee.

It’s nothing to do with class.

> For any normal business, having repeat customers is a sign of quality

They’re not a “repeat customer,” they’re the only “customer.” I gave examples of real business, this includes many IT contractors that I’ve worked with. I pointed out many other trades do not typically fall into IR35 because they operate as self-employed business owners.

> The small business owner earning more than both the employee and the consultancy worker

You’re comparing two different sized paycheques, it’s apples and oranges. I don’t accept your assertion that one always gets paid more than the other.

> The framing asks you to compare only the worker's personal tax position to an employee's

Because that’s what IR35 is targeting for the reason I stated, not because of class.

> while ignoring that the entity capturing the surplus

Irrelevant. They’re completely different types of work and working arrangement. The employee embedded in the company is acting like an employee and are taxed as one.

> The ownership structure triggers the regime.

It triggers the test, it does not determine the outcome. The outcome is, fundamentally, based on whether the worker acts as an employee or a self employed contractor. Class doesn’t come into it.

[varispeed]

You just wrote: "If the person wants to be a business owner, then operate as a self-employed contractor and not an employee." That is the class assumption, stated plainly. You are telling a person who incorporated a company, took on commercial risk, and invoices for their services that they are an employee until they prove otherwise. No one says this to any other type of business. No one tells a consultancy that its embedded workers are "actually employees of the client" and demands they prove otherwise. The presumption of illegitimacy only runs one way.

You say "they're not a repeat customer, they're the only customer." A business with one large account is still a business. Plenty of legitimate companies derive the majority of their revenue from a single client. No one questions their legitimacy. A defence contractor with one government contract is not told it is disguised employment. A law firm with one anchor client is not subjected to a status test. This suspicion is reserved exclusively for worker-owned companies.

You say the consultancy comparison is "irrelevant" and "completely different types of work and working arrangement." You keep asserting this. I keep asking you to explain what is different about the work when the person is at the same desk, same hours, same equipment, same client, same duration. You have never answered this. You answer with "the contracts are different," which is the product of the legal framework, not an independent fact.

You say "class doesn't come into it" and "it triggers the test, it does not determine the outcome." I have not claimed ownership determines the outcome. I have asked, repeatedly, why ownership determines who gets tested. You have now acknowledged that it does. A large company supplying a worker in identical conditions is never tested. You say that is because their worker is "already an employee." Right - employed by a company that captures the margin. When the worker owns the company and keeps the margin themselves, suddenly a test is needed. The variable is not the nature of the work. The variable is who keeps the profit. That is a class distinction.