An intermediary is any person who makes arrangements for an individual to work for a third party or be paid for work done for a third party. An employment intermediary is also commonly referred to as an agency.

From 6 April 2015, intermediaries must return details of all workers they place with clients where they don’t operate Pay As You Earn (PAYE) on the workers’ payments. The return will be a report (or reports) that must be sent to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) once every 3 months.

Agencies will be required to let HMRC know the following details:

• Contractor’s name, address, date of birth, etc.
• PAYE reference.
• National Insurance number.
• How the contractor was engaged during the period (i.e. was he working via a limited company).
• The duration of each assignment.
• Details of the contractor’s limited company (e.g. company registered number).
• How much was paid to the contractor.

The regulations will give HMRC information that will enable it to decrease false self-employment and abuse of offshore working. This will help HMRC to:

• support intermediaries that comply
• penalise intermediaries that don’t comply
• make sure the right tax and National Insurance is paid by people working through intermediaries
• reduce unfair commercial advantage

Here is link to the full reporting requirements – Legislation Link

This is the link to consultation – Consultation

steve@bicknells.net