Use of HMRC's taxing IR35 status tool drops 71% in two years

Usage of HMRC's Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool for IR35 compliance dropped 71% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, with firms shifting to alternative solutions due to CEST's lack of certainty and outdated logic. The tool, unchanged since 2019, produced indeterminate results in a recent court case where HMRC lost, and flawed assessments cost the government £263 million in 2020-21.