Mar 16, 2021
IR35 Time defined contracts must mean deemed employment? MOO!
16/3 16:00
By “time defined” I mean set start and end dates. Seems to me that if these are set, then both parties have agreed to give and receive work (to provide and carry out or whatever are your preferred words) until the end date is reached, regardless of agreed deliverables. That is MOO as I understand.
And yet they don’t.
This is because all the received wisdom when applied including working practices has over and over again been determined outside IR35 by reference to all sorts of matters and MOO is usually readily agreed as not involved in the agreement.
Equally, cases have been found inside. Either way the key decision factors include a long list of matters, some of which may be fundamental and many others acquire weight only when added to others of similar light weight.
However, it seems to me that given the nature of a project, any project, that it has to be a task of some sort. One can estimate how long a task might take, but it is only ever an estimate. Even HMRC’s examples allow for project timescale to be built in to the contract without complaint of MOO. I am thinking of the website author example, in both cases described in and outside IR35, with no reference to MOO despite the number of days being fixed.
Throw in notice especially if bidirectional.
Anything to do with time that has fixed dates is arbitrary when compared to when the task is finished. Sure, allow for a time rate whether hourly or daily or even weekly, but setting a fixed end date? Not so sure that is wise.
