IR35 Status Determination and a Margarita

Best kept secret for 20 years. If IR35 status determination is a visit to an Italian restaurant, guaranteed OUTSIDE IR35 is a pizza. An unbreakable right of substitution is a Margarita. It doesn’t matter what toppings. It’s still a pizza. Pizza equals outside IR35. It gets complicated when you take the Margarita away. Or use the wrong ingredients for the base. Then you have to assess status from the toppings, or the congealed or collapsed mess.

In the restaurant, you don’t tick off ingredients from a list and hope you get a pizza. You order a pizza. No mystery. It’s the same with IR35 status determination. You CAN choose pizza. You CAN set the appropriate terms and working practices for an OUTSIDE IR35 result. With 100% predictability. And they’re as easy to recognise as a pizza. You don’t need advice from a legal or IR35 expert every time you do it. You only need that once. It is what it is.

Right of Substitution’s power to be a sole determinant of Outside IR35, is backed by HMRC’s position and case law. No one EVER turned up to an appeals tribunal with an immediately recognisable pizza and lost. Fact.