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There will no changes to the IR35 rules.

On 23 September the then Chancellor announced in what has since become a somewhat infamous mini-Budget that the government intended to repeal the current off payroll working rules (commonly known as the IR35), to ‘achieve a simpler system’ and to make it more cost effective for businesses. Under his proposals, responsibility for tax and NICs would have become the responsibility of the individual providing services, not the end user client.

The IR35 rules were originally introduced to the public sector in 2017, and then to the private sector in April 2021 and were designed to enable HMRC to recover tax and NICs on contractors’ earnings where contractors are actually working as ‘employees.

On 17 October, the new Chancellor announced that this proposal has been reversed, meaning that the onus remains on the end-user client, not the contractor, to assess the employment status and tax obligations, and to pay any applicable tax, in relation to contractors’ earnings.