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You are assuming there were good intentions. The real reason for this legislation was the fact that big consultancies were losing talent. Why should someone work through a big consultancy if they could work with the client directly.

Like, why earn £50k at consultancy if you can make £500 a day without them. It's a no brainer.

So these big firms lobbied Treasury and government and they used tax avoidance as a vehicle for the "reform". It's funny though how the fact that big consultancies are actually avoiding paying tax is never brought in.

Like tax yield from a big consultancy employee on £50k is substantially lower than from a contractor on £500 a day, even if they pay themselves the mythical low salary + dividend (which is a result of PAYE being not fit for purpose, but I digress).

Currently IR35 actually _enables_ abuse of low paid workers, because they can get hired on inside IR35 and can't get any employment protections.



So in Ireland, you basically pay exactly the same tax as a contractor as you would as an FTE.

If you want to try the dividend trick, well then enjoy a special 5% tax on the gross value of the dividend, plus your personal income rates.

As a result, contracting is essentially (from a tax perspective) equivalent to full time, which means no IR35.

Mind you, the only difference between Ireland and Greece (apart from the weather) is our tax collection agencies, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.




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