Unless you’ve been living under a rock at the bottom of the ocean somewhere close to Antarctica, you’ll know about the IR35 reforms that came into effect for contractors in April this year. The reforms, which have been in effect in the public sector since 2017, expanded out to the private sector and mean that responsibility for determining a contractor’s IR35 status now lies with the end client, while tax liability sits with the fee payer. This is the case for all status determinations, except when the contractor is working for a small client or the client is based overseas with no links to the UK. In these cases, the responsibility for IR35 status would revert back to the contractor.
In order to help our recruiters, contractors and clients through the reforms, we launched the Kingsbridge Status Tool. This unique tool asks a series of carefully crafted, nuanced questions with yes or no answers to gain a 360-degree view of a contractor’s contract and working practices. The Tool then gives an inside or outside IR35 status determination, alongside a thorough report demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of their particular case. Should a contractor’s case be borderline, their answers are passed to one of our experienced IR35 specialists for a manual review. Our partners have been using the Tool to help them have conversations with contractors and end clients about a contractor’s IR35 status to ensure all parties are confident and secure.
The latest updates to the Kingsbridge Status Tool
We regularly listen to partner feedback about the Tool and make updates to ensure that it remains the most comprehensive IR35 status Tool available and gives our partners the best possible user experience. We’re pleased to be able to announce that our latest batch of updates are now live and we’d like to give you a quick peek here.
Insured with Kingsbridge
First up is a feature that many of our partners have been requesting – and we’re incredibly excited that it has launched, as it’s an expansion of an already popular feature.
Lots of our IR35 Tool partners are already using the IR35 Secure feature in the Tool to ensure their contractors hold and maintain the correct levels of insurance. Contractors who are assessed as outside IR35 (and haven’t been opted out) are automatically sent through to the Kingsbridge insurance team to discuss IR35 insurance options. This feature has now been extended so that, when switched on, it enables you to see the status of your contractors’ IR35 insurance when they have a live engagement along with an outside IR35 status determination.
All you need to do to activate this feature is assess the IR35 status of the contractor using the Kingsbridge Tool. If they are deemed outside IR35, you will straight away be able to see if the contractor holds IR35 insurance with Kingsbridge by visiting the contactor’s tab. You can then go one step further by clicking into the contractor’s own page, where you will be able to see if they also hold their professional indemnity insurance with Kingsbridge.
Giving you the ability to view IR35 insurance status within the platform will help you to manage your IR35 risk and significantly reduce the admin burden of chasing up documents from contractors, giving you peace of mind and a bit more time.
Reassessment
The Kingsbridge Status Tool reassessment feature will allow you to quickly reassess engagements for contractors without the need to go through a complete and full assessment process – ideal if a contractor is returning to work with a client who they’ve worked with previously since Status Determinations have to be done afresh for each engagement.
This new feature also allows the user of the Tool to add in a reminder to review an assessment at a later date. This will enable the system to pull through an old report and pre-populate the responses to save time and ensure reassessments are not missed. This can also be used where you feel the circumstances of an engagement might have changed, allowing you to see the previous assessment, change answers as required, and issue a new Status Determination Statement if necessary – making life a lot simpler.
We’re confident that these updates will make using the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool an even more comprehensive experience for our partners. The Tool will continue to develop over time, so if you have any suggestions for how we can make it work even better for you please do get in touch by sending an email to ir35@kingsbridge.co.uk.
Book a demo
If you’re interested in finding out more about the solutions that the Kingsbridge Status Tool can offer to help your recruitment business protect yourselves, your clients and your contractors, simply reach out to the partnerships team and book a demo of the Tool. You’ll be able to see how it works and get a feel for how it can help your recruitment business and ensure you minimise your financial risk, while also giving your clients and contractors peace of mind that they’re working with an accurate status determination.
