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Comment by mejutoco | Hacker News Reader

You can operate as a company. Those apply if you are an individual freelancer only.

In the UK you can operate as a ltd company all you like, but it won’t make a jot of difference if HMRC decides that IR35 applies to your role.

An “employer” can structure the contract to avoid IR35, but that’s precisely my point - now the “employer” needs local legal knowledge to maintain an arms length contractual relationship. (HMRC has also made the “employer” liable for IR35 problems: you can’t just punt the legal liability onto the “employee” and forget about it anymore.)

I am not so familiar with the uk. It seems you are right. From what I read it is possible, but you have a less beneficial arrangement, since you pay more tax.

> You’ll need to ensure you pay the correct PAYE tax and National Insurance (NI) for any contract which is inside IR35 because you are, in the eyes of HMRC, an employee. You can, however, manage this through your limited company.

https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge-tax/can-ir35-contractors-...

I wonder if 2 companies is enough to bypass this.

If you have one client that you work 9-5 for, in most countries that would be just false employment, both the employer and the "contractor" would see consequences of that.

In most countries operating as a limited company would solve that. The "consequences" as a personal freelancer would involve paying some more tax, which is not desirable, but is an option.

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