All NHS Locum Doctors Inside IR35
It seems that the NHS has made a decision which will put all NHS locum doctors inside IR35.
The same will apply to IT Contractors.
The NHS has decided that all locum doctors are inside IR35 whether they are really inside IR35 or not.
Surely most NHS locum doctors would pass the supervision, direction or control test as well as the substitution test.
However, it seems the NHs has told all its trusts that the locum doctors jobs are all inside IR35.
Locum Doctors Jobs Inside IR35
So, this means that even if the locum doctors are outside IR35, their jobs are inside IR35.
This is the Catch-22 situation that many NHS locum doctors find themselves in.
The same applies to IT Contractors who work for the NHS in all the Trusts.
Locum Doctors Demanding Pay Increases
According to one of our readers “Some doctors are demanding a 20% increase to cover the ‘deemed’ employers Ni contributions”.
This will not be great for morale amongst NHS doctors – or indeed for IT Contractors operating in he NHS.
Said our reader “I guess the trusts will have to take a view on how many of their key staff they can p*ss off”.
Locum Doctors Who Work Across Different Trusts
He goes on to say “This is especially hard for those doctors who locum across different trusts and will get double clobbered by having zero rated tax allowances applied.
“It is true that they will get their ‘over payments’ back when they submit Self Assessment forms in the following year but they may well regard this as extremely unfair.
“This comes just at the time when the UK Government needs them to be willing to shoulder an even heavier work load.”
IT Contractor Comment
Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Hammond appear to be on a moral crusade. They want to make contractors pay the same amount of tax as employees.
As Chancellor Hammond said in his budget speech “Why should a self employed person earning £100,000 a year pay less tax than an employee who earns £100,000 a year?”
The answer to that is that when you add on all the perks like sick pay, holidays, pension, maternity leave etc, the employee is really earning a lot more than £100,000.
Contractors Paid Less
If you take away contractors’ expenses, the contractor is actually earning a lot less than £100,000.
However, it looks as if the Government are desperate to close what they see as an anomaly.
There was an attempt to do it by raising National Insurance in the last budget till newspapers and backbenchers pointed out that their manifesto said they wouldn’t do this.
IR35 Changes Rolled Out to Private Sector?
It begs the question that if Prime Minister May and Chancellor Hammond believes this is unfar, do they just believe it is unfair in the public sector.
They surely believe that this is unfair in the private sector too.
Yet they have not done anything there, so far, to right this ‘wrong’.
One MD of a major recruitment agency says that he knows of one IT contractor at HMRC who is working on a HMRC plan to roll IR35 changes out in the private sector too.
Contractors Outside IR35 Paying IR35 Tax
If the Government is looking for things that are unfair they should look at contractors having to pay the IR35 tax in the public sector even though, legally, they are outside IR35.
This is extremely unfair.
However, the Government get around this by making their jobs inside IR35.
Now All NHS Locum Doctors Inside IR35
So, you would get the anomaly of someone who is outside IR35, and acting in a manner outside IR35 while doing the job, having to pay IR35 tax.
That is ridiculous.
These changes make all NHS locum doctors inside IR35.
It catches all those IT Contractors working on NHS project too.
This is a grave injustice!
End
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Hey, not all locum doctors are considered to fall within IR35. The decision of whether IR35 applies to the working arrangement now rests with the public body (i.e. NHS Trust or Health Board) where the work is actually being conducted. It is therefore not up to the intermediary worker to provide evidence of whether IR35 applies, but rather a decision made by the ultimate employer.