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The BBC is to offer staff contracts to some of its biggest names in a U-turn after months of accusations that it is enabling tax avoidance. These will be offered mainly to highly paid individuals who it had previously made to set up personal service companies. Those affected face pay cuts of up to 40 percent because the BBC will become liable for national insurance contributions among other employment costs. Lord Patten of Barnes, Chairman of the BBC Trust, said yesterday that he hoped other public sector organizations would follow the BBC"s lead.
The Times revealed in July that Jeremy Paxman was among a number of presenters furious that they had been subjected to questions about their integrity as a result of being asked to set up personal service companies. Such arrangements can save individuals thousands of pounds as they pay corporation tax of 21 percent rather than income tax at up to 50 percent. The BBC avoids employers" national insurance payments of 13.8 percent by paying people as freelancers. However, if the Revenue decides that a worker is in reality an employee it can chase the BBC for the back tax. The corporation is considering a report it commissioned from Deloitte after criticism of its tax affairs by MPs. It is understood to have concluded that some individuals paid through service contracts should become staff.
Last week it emerged in a report by MPs that the BBC was paying 1,500 presenters, musicians and actors through private companies. The cross-party Public Accounts Committee said that this was a "staggeringly inappropriate" way of paying staff. Margaret Hodge, its chairwoman, said that paying regular contributors through service companies gave rise to "suspicions of complicity in tax avoidance". The committee found that the BBC issued 25,000 contracts to freelance contributors. Out of these, 4,500 contributors were paid through personal service companies.
Lord Patten said: "It"s undoubtedly the case that some freelancers will be put on the payroll. I am sure that we will also want more regular information going to the Revenue on service companies so that they can be absolutely clear about the tax liability. And we may wish, frankly, to go further than that. If we do ... I hope other public sector organisations will do the same." He admitted that the BBC had not given enough clarity about tax arrangements of its workforce but denied that the BBC had ever "connived at tax dodging". He said the BBC had asked its freelance workers to set up personal service companies "in order to avoid the licence fee-payer having to be liable for unpaid taxes by people being paid in that way".
A BBC source said the decision to take people on to staff had been made because it was "a publicly funded organisation and sometimes, whether or not you"re breaking any laws, you have to reflect public feeling". "This proposal will be cost neutral," the source said. "If you"re a freelancer paid by a service company now the very high likelihood is that your pay would go down, but you would get the benefits of a pension, holiday and sick pay."
Mike Warburton, director of tax at accountants Grant Thornton, calculated that the extra costs of paying national insurance, holiday pay, sick pay and pension contributions could cost the BBC an extra 40 percent. A presenter paid ￡100,000 through a personal service company would have to accept a salary of ￡60,000 to join the staff. Mr. Warburton said: "To do it on a cost neutral basis seems a sensible approach. Licence fee-payers would presumably not want the BBC saddled with extra costs." A BBC spokesman said the corporation could not comment on the Deloitte report. "The review of these arrangements is ongoing and we will report back to the BBC Trust later this autumn," he said. Why had Jeremy Paxman and a number of other presenters been subjected to questions about their integrity