HMRC IR35 stats

This Content Was Last Updated on February 9, 2017 by Jessica Garbett

HMRC have published 2012-13 statistics on IR35 case take up and yield –

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ir35/ir35-stats-1213.htm 

In April 2012 HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) began to pilot a new approach to IR35 which they developed with feedback from the IR35 Forum. A list of IR35 Forum members can be accessed at IR35 Forum – Members of the Forum.

As part of this pilot HMRC strengthened specialist teams and centralised IR35 enquiries within these teams. They also changed their approach to enquiries to attempt to establish the facts faster and close enquiries that were low risk quickly. Alongside this HMRC refreshed their risk profiling for potential IR35 charges. HMRC is continuing to refine this risk profiling from the results of the IR35 enquiries.

In 2012-13 HMRC opened 256 cases where IR35 was the main risk. From the IR35 enquires closed in the 2012-13 year (some of which were opened prior to 2012-13) the yield was £1.1 million. HMRC closed 85 of the cases opened in the year for nil. Customer co-operation enabled many of these cases to be closed within 3 months of being opened, but all were closed within 12 months, fulfilling HMRC’s commitment to close cases early where on investigation they were low risk. Some of the cases opened in 2012-13 are still open and these represent cases where HMRC consider there are still risks that need addressing:

A web search reveals statistics for earlier years as follows: