ARC responds to new changes in tax rules that will apply from 6th April, by launching the Fairer Tax Relief Campaign. This campaign proposes that all agency workers should be entitled to tax relief on home to work travel expenses so maximising the flexibility and benefit of the full staffing resource for employers nationwide. Also all agency workers should have the same entitlement regardless of any other status, except where sector specific rules apply – e.g. CIS, so rendering obsolete tax status rules that engender inequality and unfairness. This requires a wholesale change to current government policy which invites division and unfairness.
ARC Chairman Adrian Marlowe says “Company or ‘genuine’ self-employed workers are set to retain tax benefits that other workers supplied through agencies, potentially lower paid, are not to receive. This inequality of treatment is unfair and encourages confusion, tax abuse and avoidance schemes – all of which are detrimental to the recruitment industry. Our campaign for one rule for all agency workers, regardless of status, makes sense from every perspective. We have been looking into this idea from the moment government announced its policy. Everyone I have spoken to in the agency sector has commented that it makes complete sense. The only question is ‘can we persuade government?’ – well we can’t do that unless we try, and we need the support of the industry.”
Adrian Marlowe concludes “It is clear that a new and refreshing approach is required and now is the time for change.”
Details about the campaign, including how to support, are available online
