Legislation designed to reform the way umbrella companies work is on the horizon, coming into law with the new tax year on 6th April 2026.
So what’s the goal of this legislation, what will it do, and what do the changes mean for contractors who are paid through umbrella solutions? Let’s break it down.
Why Reform Umbrella Tax Measures?
Over the past several years, a pattern of activity has been identified among the less reputable umbrella companies. These activities are not compliant with PAYE tax legislation, as a result of which the umbrella company can increase its profitability or offer its services (to recruitment agencies, etc) at a lower rate, becoming more competitive.
Currently, HMRC’s approach to tackling this can result in the contractor receiving an unexpected tax bill when this is discovered, even though the contractor didn’t intend to avoid PAYE and (especially if they’re not familiar with tax calculations themselves) may not have known their pay was off.
As a result of this, many contractors under these umbrella companies have had to break into savings, change plans, or find the money to pay this tax, creating unnecessary stress and placing them in a worse financial situation than they could have expected using another payment solution.
In recent times, HMRC have begun using data analysis to identify contractors whose first two months of umbrella payments suggest they may have been placed into a tax avoidance scheme and alerting them, helping them to exit the umbrella company before the tax bill grows larger.
In addition, they’re also prosecuting companies that follow these practices, but to quote their own notes on this reform, “the ease with which new umbrella companies can be created means that the individuals behind these non-compliant structures can quickly establish new ones”.
As such, the upcoming reforms look to also incentivise businesses using umbrella companies in their supply chain (including recruitment agencies) to choose more reputable umbrella solutions like ICS.
What Do the Reforms Do?
The updated measures implement JSL (Joint and Several Liability) for umbrella company PAYE incidents.
For contractors, the good news is that any surprise tax bill from these non-compliant practices will no longer be placed fully on the contractor but may also be divided across the agencies and end clients.
Those of you working under the ICS Umbrella solution will see no change to your pay and taxes, as we are already operating a compliant model. In fact, we use the service SafeRec, which verifies payslips. That allows both agency and worker to see their payslip is compliant, giving them peace of mind.
However, if you notice reductions in your take-home pay through another umbrella company following April 6th, you may have been paid through what’s known as ‘disguised remuneration’ by a non-compliant agency.
We anticipate seeing increased vetting of umbrella companies in the near future, too, especially with agencies or end clients who operate preferred supplier lists.
In the short-term at least we would expect the number of umbrella companies on the market to drop, with most but not all of that decline being from non-compliant companies. This will mean overall better performance by umbrella companies, but for individual contractors this may necessitate switching providers, which carries with it other administrative burdens.
We would also expect that some agencies and end clients may become less comfortable working with umbrella companies in general, meaning contractors may want to create limited companies or investigate PEO (Professional Employer Organisation) solutions instead.
If you have any questions, want to investigate alternative options, or would like to switch to ICS Umbrella ahead of the change, please get in touch.
