Professional umbrella employment provider, giant group, has welcomed the confirmation of the changes to the Finance Bill 2014 that aim to prevent ‘bogus’ self-employment through intermediaries by removing the obligation of personal service.

The measure, confirmed by HMRC, plans to tackle mass-marketed schemes where workers can be moved into self-employment en-masse, even though they should be employed. This confirmation comes after the initial announcement in last week’s Autumn Statement where Chancellor George Osborne revealed the government plans to tackle “the growth of intermediaries disguising employment as false self-employment.”

Matthew Brown, managing director of giant group, believes this is a positive step: “The proposed legislation should, if drawn up carefully, stop the mass marketing of false self-employment. Intermediaries will now be liable for any unpaid employment taxes and will have a quarterly reporting requirement to HMRC where they’ll have to justify self-employment for any workers described as such.

There’s also the possibility that the government might introduce TAAR (Tax anti-avoidance rules) legislation on top of all this. It will remain to be seen whether these intermediaries who are affected by the introduction of the legislation, will instead mass market the use of PSCs to these workers and run the risk (for the worker not them) of an IR35 investigation.”