IR35: who's interested? Not silicon.com readers...

A recent poll of silicon.com readers on IR35 – a piece of tax legislation loathed by many contractors – which asked whether it is still a topic of conversation in the office turned up some surprising results: most haven't got a clue what IR35 is.

For those who did know about the legislation, the responses to the question 'Is IR35 still a topic of conversation where you work' were fairly evenly split, with 25 per cent voting for 'Yes', and 28 per cent going for 'No'.

The rest of those who took the survey - 47 per cent - confessed to ignorance of the subject, opting for 'What's IR35?'

It's not a result that comes as a surprise to Ian Durrant, external affairs director of the Professional Contractors Group. He told silicon.com that unless a contractor had a longstanding relationship with their employer and felt able to approach them to discuss IR35 issues, any dialogue between boss and contractor on the subject would be rare.

And even for those who have a good enough relationship with their employer's company to broach the subject, the chances are that the person most with the power to help the contractor out "often doesn't understand [IR35] and doesn't have time to learn about it", he said.

He told silicon.com that due to the way the law is designed all the emphasis is on the contractor to ensure compliance - the employer escapes scot-free.

He lays the blame for the situation squarely at the feet of the recruitment agencies, saying: "IR35 doesn't affect them, so why should they care? All that really matters is their margin. As long as the contractor will sign the contract, then they're happy."

It's a stance that Joe Kelly, MD of IT recruitment agency Parity, strongly rejects. "We can't determine the nature of a contract – the work itself does that. The contract is between the client and the contractor – and clients aren't keen to be seen to be helping people evade IR35. We do what we can to ensure a contract is neutral but we can't change it to reflect a situation that isn't there," he told silicon.com.

But on the question of whether or not IR35 still merits being a topic of discussion, Kelly thinks that the situation is starting to drop off the conversation list for contractors themselves.

"In our experience, it isn't really an issue. Initially there was a lot of concern but now it seems to have died away – we only get a handful of enquiries," he said.