Taxation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Taxation - Assignment Example Whether someone is employed or self employed depends upon the terms and conditions of relevant engagement. The tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) rules do, however have special rules that apply to certain special categories of workers in certain circumstances. If you work for someone else it is important to know whether you are working for that person in employed capacity or in a self- employed capacity as an independent contractor.† (HMRC)ii Self employed taxpayers have the advantage of claiming wide range of expenses against the receipts of self employment services. â€Å"The decision to become self employed can also be affected by tax system.†(David G Blanch flower and Chris Shad forth)iii There is also an advantage of payment of income tax by instalments as against taxes being withheld by the employer under the PAYE scheme. It becomes extremely difficult in many cases to distinguish between self employment status and employee status of a tax payer. Whene ver any taxpayer is working on part time basis with more than one entity it is always the desire of HMRC to consider the tax payer under the employee status. This is because of easy and quick collection of taxes and NI under PAYE scheme on an income where only limited range of expenses can be claimed and thus providing higher amount of taxes. In fact these are the nature of activities of the taxpayer that decide the status of the tax payer. If there exists a contract of services then it is easy to consider taxpayer as an employee of the entity with whom the contract has been executed to render the services. But when such contracts exist for more than one entity the taxpayer would be treated as self employed rendering services to a number of entities. What will happen when there is no such contract? Under such conditions the issue is decided on basis of certain criteria. The main criteria are control over the performance of activities, fixidity of payment of remuneration even when th e entity is not earning, ownership of equipments used by the taxpayer during the performance of the duties, and exclusivity of providing services to one entity among other considerations. In our case Sam is now providing services exclusively to West London Company, and that is why HMRC wants tax him under the status of an employee and not under the status of as a self employed person. When you are not your own master and control of your activities and the performance is guided by the person providing you the remuneration, the status of the taxpayer is treated as an employee of the person providing him/ her the remuneration. â€Å"You are responsible for your own taxes and NI contributions† (Directgov)iv In the case of Sam his activities are now completely controlled by West London Company. Company is providing a fixed monthly remuneration of ?7500 even though he is operating from home. At the same time company is also providing him access to a desk, telephone, computer, and a lso stationery in the office. No reimbursement of expenses is allowed under the arrangement as the remuneration is fixed at ?7500 per month. There is exclusivity as Sam is also not providing services to any other entity or client. It should be noted that employment income is taxed on the basis of receipt of remuneration and not on accrual or earned basis which is applied when the taxpayer’