Are you an IT, Engineering or Computer contractor operating through your own personal service company?

If you are, you could well be caught by the IR35 regulations. IR35 is a Government measure to prevent tax avoidance in the provision of personal services.

The IR35 legislation was set up to catch an employee who leaves employment on a Friday and returns to work on the Monday as an independent consultant through a Personal Services Company. The Government and the Inland Revenue believe that if you are paid hourly/daily and attend your client's site to do your work then you are in fact a "disguised employee" of the client and not a "real business" or even a "self-employed" consultant/contractor. The legislation is an attempt to force all contractors who work for one client at a time to pay tax as if they were employees of the client. To learn about IR35 in general, we recommend the website of The Professional Contractors Group.

One of the ways to avoid getting caught in the IR35 trap is to set up an offshore company registered in a tax haven where little or no tax is payable. Your client pays your invoices gross and can offset your invoices against their corporation tax as a supplier.

You pay your moneys into your offshore company's bank account and you can decide how much you bring into the UK for tax and NIC purposes but the balance you can leave in your offshore company which does not attract any UK income or corporation tax. In this way, you can avoid the IR35 regulations to your benefit as well as to the benefit of your employing client. Read about how we've helped with IR35 here.

So if you want to avoid the IR35 trap, contact us to learn more.