Although there have been self-employed individuals in the UK for hundreds of years now, the HMRC is yet to fully get to grips with the taxation of them, resulting in clampdowns and expensive targeted campaigns to recover missed payments. In an effort to trap tax cheats, HMRC has created three campaigns which may see IT contractors under investigation.
IT contractors should be particular aware of HMRC’s clamp down if any of their current or previous contracts have involved commission based pay. Many sectors have been targeted already, including the medical industry, which may concern some of the many IT contract jobs involved in the healthcare sector.
So far, three new campaigns have been three new campaigns implemented, which all will primarily focus on the following:
-Direct selling: commission based sales in particular.
-Missing tax returns: Late tax returns and particularly self-employed individuals who have registered late.
-Trades-people: In particular construction workers and builders.