Since the 2017 (public sector) and 2021 (private sector) reforms, responsibility for determining IR35 status depends on your end client's size and sector — medium/large clients must assess your status and issue a Status Determination Statement, while responsibility remains with you and your intermediary only if your client is a small business. Whoever is responsible, matters such as control, financial risk, substitution, provision of equipment, right of dismissal and employee benefits are what's actually considered when assessing status.

 

The Dragonfly Consulting case is useful and illustrates the cost of getting IR35 wrong. The taxpayer was left with a tax bill of almost £100,000.  It remains a useful early illustration of how substitution rights and control are tested in practice.  IR35 case law has developed significantly since, particularly through a run of prominent broadcasting and sports cases:

 

• The Court of Appeal's 2022 ruling in the Atholl House case, involving broadcaster Kaye Adams, saw HMRC lose its argument on control but succeed on mutuality of obligation, and clarified that a certain approach to contractual interpretation couldn't be relied on in tax cases, meaning firms can rely on their contractually binding terms.
• Those principles were then tested further in Professional Game Match Officials Ltd v HMRC, which reached the Supreme Court in September 2024 and was ultimately sent back to the First-tier Tribunal, which issued its final decision in May 2026 finding the referees were not employees overall — a case widely seen as clarifying (and in some ways narrowing) HMRC's position on mutuality of obligation and control.
• Other recent cases, including S & L Barnes Ltd v HMRC (2024), Basic Broadcasting Ltd v HMRC involving Adrian Chiles (2024), and George Mantides Limited v HMRC (2025), have continued to test where the line falls, particularly for broadcasters and clinicians with long-running, integrated engagements.

 

The overall message from this run of cases hasn't changed from what Dragonfly first illustrated: status is decided on the full picture of a working relationship — contract wording, working practices, and the degree of genuine autonomy — not on any single factor viewed in isolation.

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