The IR will consider the whole picture but some factors can be:
• What is the client's business?
• Is there any form of contract?
• Is the contractor at financial risk in the project?
• Is the contractor working exclusively only for one client?
• Does the contractor work with their own materials on site?
• Does the contractor have to rectify work at their own expense?
• Can he or she provide substitutes to carry out the work in place of themselves?
• Is the contractor "part and parcel" of the client's organisation?
• Is the contract project based with deliverables and milestones?
• The intention of the parties
• The length of the contract
• Terms of contract – e.g. does the contractor have a notice period, the hours of work, where and how is the work carried out?
• The pay structure e.g. holiday pay, is the worker paid by the job/project or a fixed wage at a fixed time (as an employee would be);
• Are any benefits provided similar to employees (company car/van, sick pay bonuses etc.) and
• Has any Government Department (incl. the Revenue/Contributions Agency) ever provided a written status ruling in the past?
Each case is individual, so all factors must be considered to arrive at the correct status decision. It is worth noting that the Revenue questionnaire to determine status is over 80 questions in length as they will consider as many factors as possible. Do not leave the decision to the Revenue or it could be a costly exercise once additional Tax, NIC, interest and penalties are added.
The Revenue's view on the 'painting a picture' is this:
"In order to decide whether a person carries on business on his own account it is necessary to consider many different aspects of that person's work activity. This is not a mechanical exercise of running through items on a checklist to see whether they are present in, or absent from, a given situation. The object of the exercise is to paint a picture from the accumulation of detail. The overall effect can only be appreciated by standing back from the detailed picture which has been painted, by viewing it from a distance and by making an informed, considered, qualitative appreciation of the whole. It is a matter of evaluation of the overall effect, which is not necessarily the same as the sum total of the individual details. Not all details are of equal weight or importance in any given situation. The details may also vary in importance from one situation to another. The process involves painting a picture in each individual case."