Casual labour / subcontracting

It is not widely known that you must establish someone’s status when you pay them any money for helping you with their labour.The trick or tip is to get them to supply their unique tax reference number. They should invoice you for their services . If they don’t offer an invoice, it’s best to issue a self billing invoice for them to sign at the time you hand over the money.
Lots of people will offer their services to you if you have work which needs doing. In some industries it’s well regulated such as within the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS).
Most labour suppliers will be registered as self employed or a partnership and frequently these days as a limited company.
Each of them will have its own unique tax reference number (UTR).
They are not obliged to put this on their invoice to you.
You must request it if you fall into the classification termed by the government as a contractor or subcontractor.
There is a useful helpline for Construction Industry Scheme if you are not sure about your position and always try to get professional tax advice from companies like Taxfile in South London where their tax accountants make sure to sort out all your tax affairs.
If for example you are doing up a buy to let then you do not necessarily have to register just for this one activity, just make sure you follow the invoicing guidelines as above.
It may seem a lot to ask of the person doing the work for you but these days you just can’t be sure of how the government will react if they discover you have paid someone without adequate proof that they are registered to pay tax on their own profits.
For more information on the new CIS you can refer back to our blog post dated 25th August 2007 entitled ”What is the Construction Industry Scheme?”