Hudson Contract launches contract consulting wing
East Yorkshire headquartered payroll firm Hudson Contract has launched a new company to support businesses working with self-employed consultants and professionals. As the construction industry prepares to comply with new tax rules to tackle ‘disguised employment’, Hudson Freelance will aim to help clients keep in-step with the IR35 changes.
The UK’s gig economy has continued to boom well into 2019, with the country now playing home to an estimated 5 million self-employed people. The professional services sector is a major driver of growth in this area in particular, with the number of freelance workers in Britain having reached 2 million. With the success of the gig economy comes fresh challenges though, and new legislation around IR35 reforms mean companies and the freelancers they engage are turning to consultants for advisory work to remain compliant.
The IR35 reforms will affect construction firms with more than 50 employees, a turnover of £10.2 million or assets of £5.2 million. The new rules define off-payroll working in a bid to crack down on so-called ‘disguised employment’ by April 2020. Tapping into the demand among construction firms for advisory work to help navigate these changes, Hudson Contract has launched a new consulting wing.
Established in 1996, Hudson Contract is the construction industry’s largest provider of audit and contract services under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). Based in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, the firm commands revenues of up to £1.4 billion manages thousands of payments every week, amounting to millions of pounds for the firm’s more than 2,000 clients. The new arm of the firm, named Hudson Freelance, will help protect businesses from falling foul of new tax rules.
Commenting on the launch, Ian Anfield, Managing Director at Hudson Contract, remarked, “If HMRC decides highly paid consultants are actually employees, the potential liabilities could be disastrous. Many businesses have already taken the decision to cull their off-payroll staff, thinking it’s better to be safe than sorry, even though it could harm their growth prospects. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have launched Hudson Freelance to eliminate the risk of continuing to use consultants once the rules change.”
