Contribute to survey for small business review

The Office of Tax Simplification has asked Professional Passport for copies of the results from all its surveys and polls to provide hard evidence for the current review into Small Business Taxation including IR35.

Crawford Temple of service providers, Professional Passport, says that he has long held the view that many of the key decisions made on legislation impacting the contracting market have been based almost exclusively on perception rather than reality, as a result of little identifiable hard data on the sector.

In an attempt to combat this and ensure that future discussions and thinking are underpinned by an evidence based approach, Professional Passport has been running a series of surveys to obtain contractors' opinions.

Following a recent meeting with the Office of Tax Simplification to discuss the review of Small Business Taxation, including IR35, Professional Passport has been asked to provide full details of the results.

Crawford Temple, who is also a regular contributor to UKTECH and a member of its 'Ask An Expert' panel said: "There has never been any significant volume of accurate data available on this market and many opinions expressed are no more than just that, opinions with little or no significant evidence to support them. We recognised over a year ago that unless we could obtain real data directly from those in the market and affected by the legislation, we would find ourselves in the same position.

"Our first Contractors Opinion Poll provided a real insight into the thinking of contractors; our current surveys are also providing invaluable data and whilst we have always believed that having the data is a key part of any review it is encouraging that the OTS seems to be taking a similar evidence based approach."

Crawford has asked UKTECH readers to add their opinions to the surveys; there are three areas still open:

Contractors Opinion Poll - a wide range of questions on many of the issues facing contractors whether operating through umbrella or limited companies.

IR35 Survey – specific questions relating to IR35.

Feedback on Defining a Professional Contractor – how to identify Professional Contractors and remove them from the red tape and bureaucracy that currently exists.

The full results of each will be sent to the Office of Tax Simplification so all views count.