Significant IR35 Factors
From the Hood case we look at significant IR35 factors and those of less significance.
Knowing these is crucial for contractors to stay outside IR35.
Insignificant IR35 Factors
1. The timesheets that he filled in were of no significance. It was just a means of recording the time he worked in order to pay him.
2. The company required him to carry a security pass. Albeit it is one identifying him as a temporary, rather than permanent, member of staff.
3. They required him to attend safety briefings.
4. Likewise the Special Commissioner found it of little significance that (even if after some time had passed by) Mr Hood became a user of ABB‘s email system. The fact that they engaged him only temporarily did not diminish the need for communication with him.
5. According to the Commissioner: ‘I also read no significance into the fact that ABB retained the intellectual property rights in the designs produced by Mr Hood. Whatever his status, it would in my view be quite remarkable if ABB, having paid Mr Hood (if only indirectly) to produce such designs, had then left him at liberty to sell them to its competitors’.
6. They checked his work in the same way as that of ABB‘s own employees. However, I do not regard that as a significant factor. That’s becasue of the stringent safety requirements ABB and its own customers imposed rendered careful checking inevitable.
IR35 Factors of Significance
1. The company‘s business was, in effect, the hiring out of Mr Hood to various companies engaged in the oil industry.
2. Allocation of work – Mr Hood reported to the technical manager to whose project team they assigned him at any given time. Mr Hood was thus expected to, and did, accept those tasks allocated to him at weekly meetings.
3. Provision of equipment – ABB provided all the necessary equipment. This included, particularly, working space at its own premises. That’s where Mr Hood was required to undertake the work. Tey also provided the computer and software necessary for its performance.
So, those are the significant IR35 factors and those which are less so.
