Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) preparedness of businesses for the reforms to off-payroll working rules due to be implemented in April 2020 and (b) the potential merits of delaying that implementation date.

As announced at Budget 2018, the reform of the off-payroll working rules will come into effect from 6 April 2020. The Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) published in July 2019 sets out HMRC’s assessment that the reform to the off-payroll working rules is expected to affect 170,000 individuals. The TIIN can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rules-for-off-payroll-working-from-april-2020/rules-for-off-payroll-working-from-april-2020.

As part of the review published on 27 February 2020, HMRC engaged with a number of affected individuals and businesses through a series of stakeholder roundtables to test business readiness.

The Government is committed to working with organisations to ensure changes to the off-payroll working rules are implemented correctly from April 2020. HMRC are undertaking an extensive programme of education and support to help organisations prepare for the reform. This includes:

• Offering one-to-one support to more than 2,000 of the UK’s biggest employers, and writing directly to 43,000 medium sized businesses and other organisations.
• Providing large and medium sized businesses, public bodies, and charities with factsheets to share with their contractors, and publishing this factsheet on gov.uk.
• Holding workshops with small tax agents, recruitment agencies, charities, and public bodies.
• Holding at least weekly webinars, with small tax agents, recruitment agencies, charities, public bodies and contractors.
• Publishing an enhanced version of the Check Employment Status for Tax online tool in November 2019 to help individuals and organisations make the right status determinations and apply the off-payroll rules correctly.