Autumn Statement: Drive to stamp out bogus self employment part of fresh crackdown on tax avoidance

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George Osborne has said the government will launch a new crackdown on bogus self employment as part of a new drive to tackle tax avoidance.

In the Autumn Statement today, the chancellor announced a package of measures to tackle tax avoidance, tax evasion, and fraud, which he said would raise over 拢9bn over the next five years.

The Treasury said measures would include a clamp down on tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning, including by 鈥減reventing employment intermediaries from disguising employment as self-employment to avoid tax鈥.

According to the Treasury, around 300,000 workers in construction are in this position, costing HMRC more than 拢380m.

The crackdown follows that a future Labour government would act immediately to tackle so-called 鈥渂ogus self employment鈥 on construction sites.

In September, Reeves said that if elected Labour would introduce rules to ensure that construction workers were automatically treated as employed directly by contractors if there were 鈥渙bvious signs鈥 that they were directly employed.