Poor Eamonn

Eamonn Holmes is the latest tv presenter to fall foul of tax tribunal judge Harriet Morgan. It was Harriet's casting vote that sealed the case of Joanna Gosling, Tim Wilcox and David Eades, BBC News Channel presenters; in their tribunal against the HMRC, Harriet concluded that there was ‘sufficient mutuality and at least a sufficient framework of control to place the assumed relationships between the BBC and the presenters in the employment field’.  Thus, they shouldn't have been paid via personal service companies, a route enforced by the BBC.

In the case of Gosling, Wilcox and Eades, the BBC is 'helping' with the back payments. Will ITV be as kind to Eamonn, and his company, Red White and Green ?

Dave Chaplin, a consultant on contractor tax notes “Had Holmes been investigated under the new rules, due to take effect in April 2020, he would not owe HMRC any money at all. He would actually get a tax refund, and it would be his deemed employer - in this case ITV - that would be picking up a tax bill.” 

Eamonn's personal style, in the view of the courts, is a million miles from that of Ms Lorraine Kelly. She successfully argued that she is a freelance theatrical artist, acting as a genial host on television, and therefore in a quite different tax position.