Tighter employment regulations welcomed by legitimate crewing firms.

On 6 April the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) (Amendment No.2) Regulations 2015 will be implemented, requiring companies deemed to be ‘employment intermediaries’ by HMRC to provide quarterly reports on workers who are not paid on a PAYE basis.

The term ‘employment intermediaries’ applies to companies that provide services to clients and make payments to individuals who have supplied those services. The new regulations state that HMRC sees such workers as holding employment with the intermediary, and therefore their pay subject to income tax.

Gallowglass crewing managing director Jonathan Sigsworth said: “This will come as bad news for many agencies and suppliers that until now have avoided deducting tax and NIC for their workers. HMRC will be scrutinising these reports and querying why workers have not been subject to PAYE.

“We were the first and remain one of the very few labour suppliers in the events industry to have been operating legitimately. All of our crews have tax deducted and are offered pensions. We hope that this signals the end of the unfair commercial advantage that many crewing companies have enjoyed.”

“Again, this change benefits companies that exclusively use their own, fully-trained staff at all times. We are advising clients to give careful thought to suppliers’ legitimacy, especially if they are asking clients to endorse supporting records destined for HMRC.”