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After listening to your feedback, we’re happy to announce that we have made some changes to the IR35 status tool. We’ve made some changes to make the tool even simpler and quicker for you to use.
In this blog, we outline what is different about the Kingsbridge Status Tool, and what has changed with our latest update.
What is the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably well aware of the change in IR35 legislation which came into effect on the 6th April. The reforms saw the responsibility of assessing contractors’ IR35 status shift from the contractor to the client. In addition, it is now up to the fee-payer, whether that is the client or the recruiter, to ensure that the correct PAYE tax and National Insurance contributions are deducted for ‘Inside IR35’ engagements. You can find out more about IR35 here.
To support our recruiters, clients, and contractors throughout the reforms, we launched the IR35 status tool. The award-winning tool offers the best of both tool types; a fully automated tool that gives an instant determination, backed up by manual review from our expert IR35 team for any indeterminate results.
The Insurance Validation Tool
One of the biggest changes to the Status Tool is the introduction of the Insurance Validation Tool.
In essence, it is a lite version of the Kingsbridge IR35 Status Tool. It has been designed to swiftly check an IR35 status determination from an external IR35 tool – for example, CEST, with just 10 simple questions.
Making use of the Insurance Validation Tool ensures that if your contractor holds IR35 Protect insurance with Kingsbridge, or if you have taken out Off-Payroll Protect insurance, you would not be subject to the prospects of success clause if an IR35 investigation comes to light.
So, you will get full use of our Off-Payroll Protect insurance without needing to complete a full IR35 assessment for your contractors again if you’ve already got an SDS elsewhere. You can find out more about the Insurance Validation Tool and book a demo here.
Professional Indemnity elsewhere
The other big update to our tool is Professional Indemnity Elsewhere, as part of IR35 Secure. This means that if you have IR35 Secure turned on, we will collect your contractors’ renewal dates, and their insurance provider, for professional indemnity insurance. This allows us to continue to support you with your contractor insurance, by making sure they have both the correct and continuous cover for their limited company.
Not only does professional indemnity cover make a contractor a more desirable hire, but it also helps to protect clients in the event of a claim. In addition, holding business insurance is an indicator that the contracting is working outside IR35.
Please note that Professional Indemnity Elsewhere will only be available to you if you have elected to have IR35 Secure turned on.
But what is IR35 secure?
IR35 secure has been designed to make your life a little bit easier. If you decide to opt-in to IR35 Secure, it means you can automatically refer your outside IR35 contractors to us to discuss a quote for IR35 insurance.
Other IR35 Tool updates
We’ve also made a couple of smaller updates to the tool:
- Terms of Use. We’ve made a few small changes to the wording of the existing terms, to make things a bit clearer and to better protect everyone using the tool.
- Client Portal. We’ve improved the tool user interface to make your customer journey smoother. We’ve added a new feature that allows your Client Admin to manage users, including features like being able to send a reset password email and delete users.
- Updates to question wording. We’ve made a few small tweaks to a few questions in the tool itself, to ensure that we are as compliant as possible.
You can find out more about these updates here.
What’s next for the Kingsbridge Status Tool?
The tool will continue to develop over time. As we are always looking at any ways to improve our services, please do get in touch if you have any suggestions for future updates. Just pop an email over to ir35@kingsbridge.co.uk. In addition, if you have any questions about the updates, feel free to send us an email or contact your relationship manager who will be more than happy to go over them with you.
And if you haven’t signed up for our award-winning tool yet and are interested in signing up or want to find out more, you can book a demo here.
