Should my son have been treated as employed rather than self-employed?

[SelfEmployedAdvice]

My son has been working for someone since April 25.
He’s worked full time for him, using his boss’s equipment. He has followed orders in order to carry out his job (all work has come through the boss), has been refused regular time off, so has often worked 7 days a week with no day off for weeks at a time, and has also worked some lengthy shifts which has meant up to 50 hours constantly at work and having to nap on the job.

His boss has insisted all along that ds is self employed. Under these circumstances I don’t think he should have been. He asked to be employed last year, but the boss refused.

He’s had no contract, has no equipment of his own, did not work under his own terms. He’s had no option to work for anyone else, he’s had barely any free time to live, let alone work for anyone else!

Am I right in thinking that he should have been employed here?
If so can anyone explain what the potential ramifications are for my son or for his boss? Are there any official resources that cover this sort of thing? Any way I can help my son sort this out?

Thank you!

HMRC have a tool on their website to determine employment status https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax

You can report to HMRC if you believe that the employer is not adhering to these rules. If HMRC believe that you are correct, the employer will be charged the tax due (and possibly fined)

If it's not reported then your son will be expected to file a self assessment and pay tax directly to HMRC.

Based on your post he should be treated as employed.

He can report them to HMRC, and can raise an employment tribunal case.
Fairly obviously he'd lose his job.

Whether he wants to go down that route is something he has to decide.

https://www.litrg.org.uk/working/employment-status/false-self-employment

I can’t get this to work as he has no contract.

Google suggests he should be employed though, not self employed.

This every day of the week

He does have a contract. He might not have a written contract (in which case his employer is breaking the law in another way!) but a contract exists as he is being paid.

Is his ‘boss’ paying his tax and NI?

How is he getting paid? Does he submit invoices and then declares his income to HMRC?

If you use the questionnaire, just select there is a contract because even self employed have a contract...at some stage he must have agreed the hours and pay for that work.v

Employers cannot just decide that people working for them are self employed. If it were that simple every employer would do this overnight

If working conditions are this dire, why is your son still working there? And why does he want to be employed? He could walk tomorrow if he wanted

No, my son is working on tax returns as the employment has all been within the last tax year.

He’s not there any more but there are some issues to iron out.

Doesn’t matter if he has a contract or not. He’s being employed by his boss! Report the boss to hmrc