Former host of the BBC's One Show, Adrian Chiles has won his tribunal appeal against an IR35 decision made by HMRC.
Chiles who has previously worked on a number of finance and business themed shows for the Corporation was being pursued for a determination of unpaid taxes during the five year period between 2012 and 2017. The amounts equated to income tax of £1.25m and national insurance of £0.46m.
These are years in which Chiles had a used a personal service company to receive income from his various work activities. The company however, Basic Broadcasting Limited was initially incorporated in 1996 as a result of the BBC requiring him to contract his services.
Chiles was the subject of a BBC pay disclosure in 2017 - which revealed the star earned between £150,000 and £200,000 in that annual period.
In addition to the BBC contract work, Chiles also had contracts with ITV - with all money paid into his BBL Ltd company.
Under IR35 guidelines, HMRC determined that for tax purposes he was an employee of both ITV and the BBC. Factors taken into account included the level of control he had in providing his day to day services as well other contracts he would have had in the same timeframe. These were used to determine whether Chiles' business was indeed operating as a business and not being used to disguise his employments for tax purposes.
In the tribunal it was deemed that he was working as a 'business' with other business contracts he undertook and his level of responsibility within those contracts.
One of the tests for IR35 comes down to whether a 'business' contracted to provide a service can provide any employee to the hiring firm to fulfill the contract. In Chiles' case the contracts with ITV and the BBC prohibited BBL Ltd from sending a substitute for Chiles. The tribunal allowed this as other contracts undertaken were similar.
In recent years a number of personalities have been targeted for using personal service companies, including Lorraine Kelly.