Self employed regular us of self employed

[MochaShots]

If anyone could quickly help me with a few business related things I'd be grateful.

If a self employed tradesman takes on another self employed tradesman on a very regular basis. Do they need to employ them? If not, and they pay them a weekly wage, is this legal and is the wage classed as an expense?

This is not for me by the way, I'm clueless.

Many thanks

I’m no expert…. But there are HMRC guidelines online about when someone is a self employed contractor and when they actually are to all intents and purposes an employee and so should be employed. It includes things like whether they do work for other people.

so it’s probably fine if the other person genuinely is self employed and does other work for other people, can say yes or no, has control over when and where they work etc. (can’t remember all the points)

It depends on the status of the engagement and what work they are doing for you, hmrc have a checklist you can work through and it will tell you the answer

www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax

And yes it would be counted as an expense and off set against profit.

Totally depends on how they are "taken on". Trades subcontract all the time. They are still free to take on any other work they wish and turn down working with another person/company. If that is the case, they are not an employee. They won't be paying a wage, they will be paying an invoice, which needs to be submitted by the payee, and it is tax deductible for the payer.

I have taken someone to court when they claimed I was self-employed but I was an employee as they refused to pay the pension contributions and annual leave I was entitled to.

There are a number of test you need to look at which I've covered briefly below:

Personal service - without seeking permission can the tradesman send someone else to work instead of them?
Control - can the tradesman set his own hours, decide what needs to be done each day and how he does this, does he set his own rates of pay/pay of any substitutes, can he negotiate his pay on a job by job basis, is he responsible for any financial losses arising from his work?
Mutuality of obligation - is there an obligation on the 'employer' to provide continuous work for the tradesman. This could be implied if regular work is offered over a number of weeks/months.