Since the Agency Legislation update in April 2014 – HMRC have published advice surrounding the changes. The new legislation requires workers to be the subject of a right to control within an assignment to make them an employee and for the agency to be held responsible for operating PAYE (Pay As You Earn) payments. If the worker is seen by the agency as self-employed, it is the responsibility of the agency to present all evidence to prove the worker holds a self-employed status to HMRC. In doing so they would have to justify to HM Revenue & Customs why the worker is not seen or considered as an employee. With yet more news regarding self- employment coming into the spot light, this now poses an even bigger burden on agencies who use self-employment models. From 6 July 2015 onwards, the burden on the agency will now be that of having to send reports to HMRC that contain details of all workers and their payments for those they consider to be genuinely self-employed, with penalties applying where reports are late, incomplete or incorrect. This will distinguish between those truly reputable agencies that do offer self-employment models for the genuinely self-employed and those less scrupulous who still hide behind ‘False Self Employment’. “Agency Legislation has always been a hazy topic, misconceived by many agencies, and now with the increased work load along with the risk of additional cost associated with self-employed workers, we can see the reservation that many recruitment agencies may have, when offering placements to self-employed workers which is just another reason why ePayMe would advise such agencies ‘NOT’ to use self -employment models” says Neil Baigent, ePayMe’s Compliance Manager. ePayMe t: 0800 622 6119 e: info@epayme.co.uk w: www.epayme.co.uk