Taking on a Subcontractor

The cost of hiring a subcontractor for business purposes is an allowable expense and will reduce your taxable profit.

You must make sure that they are genuine subcontractors, otherwise you will have to treat them as employees; this means that tax, national insurance and employment rights will be bought into the mix.

They will provide you with an invoice for the work that they have done, ideally including their tax reference.

To be safe, it is always a good idea to put a contract in place between you and the subcontractor which will highlight the key indicators of self-employment. The contract should explain the services that the subcontractor will provide, mutuality of obligation, how much control they have, outside assistance to whom they will pay themselves, correcting any problems with their work (which is down to them) and the length of the contract.

If in need of a template, Simply Docs explains everything you will need to include.

There are rules that apply to those who supply their services to businesses. IR35 is something you should be aware of for you and even more so to your subcontractors.

More info can be found here on this

Disclaimer – this information is correct at the time of publication and is provided as general information not to be relied upon without a discussion with a suitably qualified professional