Mess

The Times makes a front page lead out of the unhappy love triangle that is the BBC, HMRC and Talent.

Since April 2017, the BBC has had to re-assess all presenters' pay arrangements using CEST - HMRC's flaky tool, more fully known as for Check Employment Status for Tax - to see if they complied with IR35, HMRC's conviction that most people paid through Personal Service Companies are 'disguised employees'.

The Times' sources say that Chris Evans, Claudia Winkleman and John Inverdale are among those who were moved from freelance/self-employed status to employees for tax purposes - but that, in wonderful BBC fashion, the change was delayed for the first few months of the financial year. So nervous-nelly Auntie dobbed up HMRC around £5m in advance to cover potential income tax and National Insurance contributions, in case it faced further penalties or interest charges.

Then, in the autumn of 2017, it started asking the talent to repay the income tax and NI for those months - and this, says The Times, has made them extra grumpy.

Chris Evans is an active director of seven companies, including Carfest, and recently-registered 500 Words. Ms Winkleman is a director of Little Owl Productions, which had assets of £352k in the bank according to most recent published accounts. John Inverdale, as well as his work for the BBC, has presented the French Open Tennis championships for ITV since 2012. He has seven directorships.