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"If you are an employee of a Ltd company who sits next to a PAYE person, you might be a deemed employee, you might not be. That has NOT changed and will not change in April. What IS changing, is who makes that determination."

To me it seems the client/company that hires you can be held liable. Or at least the companies think so. More and more clients say they are unsure of whether they would be held liable for "disguised employment", and would rather just avoid the issue by not hiring contractors for more than 3 months at a time, if at all.

Indeed after a few years contracting, I have switched to a permie role, primarily because my current client offered me a perm role, as they were unwilling to renew my contract for 2020 due to the changes (well, either I take the perm role, or a 3 month contract renewal and then I go elsewhere).

I have noticed contract work drying up over the last year or so, many companies are only offering perm roles, or basic 3 month contracts (with option for one extra 3 month renewal). Quite a few have stopped looking for contractors at all, or insist they hire you through an umbrella corporation, who take their own cut of your rates (one wanted 25% of my day rate just to act as the "middle man", to shield the client from liability).

If the attempt of this legislation was to force people into permanent roles, it did a bang up job.

Before, the headaches of dealing with HMRC, hiring accountants, dealing with delayed payments from clients (sometimes for months), and having to involve lawyers quite often in your business life, was worth it for the work/life flexibility and extra income you could earn as a contractor.

However, with the new legislation, it seems not only do you have to deal with the above, but you may well end up paying as much in taxes as a permie, but with none of the protections or benefits offered (how many permies have to go 3+ months without getting paid, or have clients go bust and never pay you at all, or can get laid off with immediate effect for whatever reason their employer wants).

Then there is the fact you will no longer get contracts to work on 1 to 5 year projects, so you have to constantly move around between clients every 3 to 6 months, which means the moment you get a contract, you have to start immediately looking for others, so that after 3 months you have an alternative.

It seems the days of getting a 12 month contract, working hard, getting paid, then taking 6 months off to relax, look for another contract, relocate if necessary (it usually is in my experience), and work some more are finishing, which is a shame. I do find a permie role somewhat stifling, but for the moment that seems to be the way things are heading in the UK.

Saying that, I am not shown on the numbers in the article, primarily because my current employer has allowed me to keep my ltd company and do other contract work on the side, but without it being my main income stream, the costs of accountants and dealing with HMRC is making me consider shutting the company down, and just going sole-trader for the odd side work.