Company providers 'pose as accountants' to dodge new rules

Accountancy firms that provide services to contractors are exempt from the
new rules, which sought to clamp down on the companies by identifying them
through their off-the-shelf company provider.

Some providers are badging themselves as accountants if they have an
accountant employed or the company is a member of an accountancy body.

Following advice from Deloitte and tax counsel Kevin Prosser QC on the new
rules, managed service provider Brookson said it would focus on its core
provision of professional accountancy services to freelance professionals,
‘thereby being exempt’ from the legislation.

But others have suggested providers badging their advice as ‘accountancy’
advice was a naïve route to take. ‘In my view it’s naïve to believe that the
Treasury would allow [such] a loophole’, said KPMG tax director John Chaplin.

‘This is the end for companies specialising in promoting and facilitating tax
advantageous services to one man limited companies, regardless of whether they
are badged as “accountants” or not,’ he added.

‘Contractors should disregard claims made by some specialist providers of
services to one man limited companies that membership of a professional
accounting body exempts them from this legislation,’ said Matthew Brown,
managing director of managed service and umbrella company provider Giant Group.