E-BOOK
IR35 and Off-Payroll Explained
Eight chapters on who decides your status, what it costs to be inside, and what changed on 6 April 2025. IR35 is usually explained as a set of tests. The more useful question is who carries the liability when the tests are applied wrongly, and that answer moved last year without most contractors being told.
- Eight chapters, three tables, one worked assignment
- Chapter 8 against Chapter 10, and which one applies to you
- What employer National Insurance takes before your own tax starts
GET the free checklist instantly, no signup!
Who this e-book is for
Contractors and consultants working through their own limited company who want to know which regime applies to each engagement, what an inside determination is actually worth, and what to do when they disagree with one.
Your client stopped issuing determinations and nobody explained why
The small company thresholds rose on 6 April 2025, so clients that were medium in 2024 may be small now. A small private client does not issue a Status Determination Statement, which means your own company decides status and carries the liability for getting it wrong. The risk transferred quietly and it transferred to you.
You are comparing an inside rate with an outside one
They are not comparable at the same number. On an assignment rate, employer National Insurance comes out before anything is treated as your pay. An £83,500 assignment loses £10,239 that way, 12.3 per cent of the rate, before your own income tax and National Insurance start. Chapter six works it through.
Your contract says outside and your working week says otherwise
Then the working week wins. Control, substitution and mutuality of obligation are judged on what actually happens, and a well drafted contract nobody follows is worse than none at all, because it looks like an attempt to dress the arrangement up. Chapter four covers what evidence is worth keeping.
FACTS
What counts as a small client
From 6 April 2025 a private sector client is small if it meets two of three: turnover not more than £15 million, balance sheet total not more than £7.5 million, and not more than 50 employees. Small means your company decides. Medium, large or public sector means the client decides and must give you a Status Determination Statement with its reasoning.
8 chapters
Three tables
45 days
To respond to a disagreement
FACTS
A blanket determination is not reasonable care
A client that puts every contractor inside without considering individual engagements has not met the requirement, and that failure keeps the liability with the client rather than passing it down the chain. Worth knowing when you are told the decision is not negotiable. Put the disagreement in writing and the client has 45 days to respond with reasons or issue a new determination.