4th August 2008, 06:43 PM
It is the contractor's legal responsibility to get your employment status right, both for tax purposes and for employment rights purposes. If you are an employee, you should be paid through the contractor's payroll and pay tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) like all other employees.
To help contractors, and employers in general, decide on whether subcontractors should be treated as employees or self-employed for tax purposes, HMRC provides an Employment Status Indicator tool.
This uses a series of interactive questions that explore a person's work arrangements. The tool may be used by contractors/employers and by individuals and is available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs/esi.htm . If your contractor is willing, it would be useful to work through the questions together.
If you are not an employee, the next issue is whether you are a "worker". If you are a skilled tradesman without a business structure and you work for one contractor for the duration of a construction project, you are likely to be a "worker". The Employment Appeal Tribunal, in a number of tribunal cases, has decided that skilled tradesmen, such as bricklayers and plumbers, who were registered as Construction Industry subcontractors, were "workers" and therefore entitled to holiday pay. ( so think on !)
"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers
To help contractors, and employers in general, decide on whether subcontractors should be treated as employees or self-employed for tax purposes, HMRC provides an Employment Status Indicator tool.
This uses a series of interactive questions that explore a person's work arrangements. The tool may be used by contractors/employers and by individuals and is available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs/esi.htm . If your contractor is willing, it would be useful to work through the questions together.
If you are not an employee, the next issue is whether you are a "worker". If you are a skilled tradesman without a business structure and you work for one contractor for the duration of a construction project, you are likely to be a "worker". The Employment Appeal Tribunal, in a number of tribunal cases, has decided that skilled tradesmen, such as bricklayers and plumbers, who were registered as Construction Industry subcontractors, were "workers" and therefore entitled to holiday pay. ( so think on !)
"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers