ITV presenter Helen Fospero has won her case against HMRC in an IR35 Tribunal carrying a £80,000 tax liability.

According to a decision by the First Tier Tribunal, HMRC had deemed her liable to pay income tax and national insurance contributions relating to her engagements between her limited company, Canal Street Productions Ltd, and ITV during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 tax years.

Tribunal Judge Ashley Greenbank said, ““In the period in question, Ms Fospero was engaged, through Canal Street, in a separate business, she worked under a series of short-term engagements for ITV, she had no guarantee of further work outside those engagements and ITV had no obligation to provide any work. All of these factors point towards Ms Fospero being regarded as self-employed.”

HMRC said it is considering an appeal.

The case follows a similar IR35 case which saw a professional IT consultant winning an IR35 case against HMRC.

Qdos CEO, Seb Maley, commented, “This is the second time a contractor has defeated the taxman in the space of a week, which begs the question: does HMRC itself understand the legislation it created, enforces and will needlessly reform in exactly six months? This is another example of HMRC wrongly pursuing a contractor, placing them under enormous financial and emotional stress. Given the tax office’s aggressive nature towards independent workers, contractors need to be confident of their IR35 compliance.”

Commenting on the win, Dave Chaplin, CEO and founder of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, said, “This appears to be a sensible approach by the tribunal – to properly stand back and consider whether the presenter was in business on their own account.  Helen Fospero clearly was; she was in the business of presenting and broadcasting and was doing so on a self-employed basis.

“It is surprising this case went as far as tribunal, because it does appear that the Ms Fospero was a casual worker with no obligation to accept work or be offered work – which is one of the key tenets of employment.  HMRC clearly took a very narrow-minded view.  However, we anticipate that HMRC will appeal because they seem to be appealing case after case at the moment and splashing taxpayers’ money on pursuing meritless cases,” Chaplin said.