Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs v Atholl House Productions Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 501
26th April 2022
Latest binding decision on IR35: The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the breadth of factors that a court or tribunal may take into account when applying the third stage of the Ready Mixed Concrete test is wide and multi-factorial. Mutuality of obligation and the right of control are necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, pre-conditions to a finding that a contract is one of employment.
Importantly, whether or not a person is known to carry on a business, profession or vocation on their own account as a self-employed person is a relevant factor to consider and would be “myopic to ignore it”.
In addition, the Court overturned the approach in Weight Watchers and dismissed HMRC’s arguments that the third-stage of the RMC test should be exclusively focused on the terms of the contract with a prima facie affirmative conclusion of employment if mutuality of obligation and control are found to exist.
Keith Gordon and Ximena Montes Manzano represented the taxpayer in this case.
Full case can be found here: https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2022/501.html&query=(atholl)