This case concerned an IR35 appeal by a personal services company providing the services of television and radio presenter Eamonn Holmes – Red White and Green Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKUT 83 (TCC). The essential question was whether “Mr Holmes would have been an employee of ITV, under a contract of service, or whether he would have been providing his services as a self-employed person under a contract for services”.
The UT decision included detailed analysis of the FTT’s approach to control. Counsel for the taxpayer argued that “the FTT focused too much on editorial control and overlooked or gave little weight to factors where ITV did not and could not exercise control”. However, the UT did not accept this:
“The FTT made an evaluative judgment that there was a sufficient framework of control. We can only interfere with the FTT’s conclusion if we are satisfied that no reasonable tribunal, properly directing itself on the relevant question of law, could have reached that conclusion. We are satisfied that the FTT did properly direct itself as to the question of control. It reached a conclusion which was available to it on the evidence and there is no ground for us to interfere with that conclusion.”
In relation to other matters, too, the UT concluded that the FTT had correctly “reached a conclusion looking in the round at all the factors it considered to be relevant”. And in relation to another ground for the appeal, the UT was not persuaded that any error of law on behalf of the FTT had been established.
https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/TCC/2023/83.pdf
Related content from Claritax Books
In Employment Status, author David Kirk guides the reader through the maze of apparently contradictory case law on this topic. The book includes coverage of IR35 issues, and also of topics of officers, agency workers, personal services companies and special occupations.
