Lorraine Kelly defeats HMRC in IR35 tax tribunal

Lorraine Kelly has successfully defeated HMRC at an IR35 tax tribunal.

The ITV breakfast show presenter, who works through her limited company, Albatel Ltd, appealed against an HMRC tax bill of £900,000, for her engagement with between September 2012 and July 2017.

This is the fourth out of five IR35 tax cases HMRC has lost since the beginning of 2018. Judge Jennifer Dean concluded the tribunal saying that Kelly had a sufficient degree of control in her work.

Andy Chamberlain, IPSE’s deputy director of policy said: “What this judgement hammers home irrefutably is that HMRC are completely in the dark about their own tax legislation.

“Lorraine Kelly’s case is the fourth of five IR35 cases that HMRC has lost since 2018. It is now clear that they have wrongly been hounding many BBC and ITV presenters over a tax law they do not understand themselves.

“The government, however, has said that from April 2020, private businesses across the UK will have to determine the IR35 status of their contractors.

“This judgement should be a wake-up call to government that it cannot expect businesses to understand a tax law that it cannot even implement itself.”