Notably Absent
While I welcome the start of a new era in Government, with a pledge from this new coalition to hasten its plans to cut the £163bn Budget deficit, I wonder what these recovery plans really mean to UK business in the wider sense and, more importantly, to the professional contractor.  

In its document  published yesterday, the ConLibs have outlined the terms of their deal, but I have a sense that much of this document will become redundant when the details of the Emergency Budget are announced in the next 50 days.  

Notably absent from the document is anything pertaining to IR35 and the Agency Workers’ Regulation.  So much for the pre-election promises, or rather ‘noise’, made by the Conservatives around reviewing this regulation.  It would seem that the status quo will remain the same. But was anyone really holding their breath in anticipation of change based on Mark Prisk’s electioneering? I  hope not, because even before election day, a Conservative official put it on record that: “scrapping it [IR35] would not  resolve many of  the issues around the taxation of small businesses”.  Vince Cable is equally elastic with his views on this subject.  After an enthusiastic stand against IR35 in 2009, when he signed an Early Day Motion to abolish the regulation, he now insists that they [Lib Dems] don’t want to repeal IR35, but would like to make it “fairer and less damaging to contractors”. Which is pretty much what I said was needed all along!

And let’s face it, the AWD is here to stay. Cameron may be able to make some minor amends, but even with the help of his new friends in Downing Street, the most the coalition will achieve is some clarification of the more controversial definitions contained in the regulations, particularly around pay.  And less ‘gold-plating’.  But let’s see what happens when we are introduced to the details of the next Budget.

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Tags: budget, ConLibs, IR35 legislation, tax, uk government