Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the level of disguised employment in the (a) hairdressing and (b) beauty industries; and what steps she plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle disguised employment.

HMRC is committed to ensuring that the tax system operates fairly and efficiently and creates a level playing field for compliant businesses. Most businesses pay what they owe but a minority fail to register with HMRC or only declare a portion of their earnings.

HMRC is committed to tackling false self-employment and will investigate evidence suggesting businesses have misclassified individuals for tax purposes. In these cases, HMRC will take steps to ensure they pay the right Income Tax and National Insurance contributions.

HMRC recognises that some customers can find it hard to understand their tax obligations. HMRC is developing and testing new educational material specific to the hair and beauty sector to explain better the rent-a-chair model making it easy for customers to get things right and reduce mistakes. HMRC is planning for this to be ready for publication on GOV.UK in the spring. HMRC is continuing to work on updates to the Taxable Persons manual and these will be published in due course.