A new statutory offence of evading income tax will come into force from 1 January 2001, under a new clause tabled by the Government to the Finance Bill.
Some have indicated that this is a direct attack on contractors and is there to ensure that contractors toe the line by using scare tactics, like imprisonment.
This is actually very serious. It does mean that if you judge yourself that you are outside of IR35 then you will have to be watertight in your arguments, otherwise you coudl face extremely stiff penalties.