The draft legislation released in the Finance Bill of 2026 on the 21st of July confirmed that HMRC intends to apply joint and several liability rules as part of their changes to make agencies or end clients liable in the event of an Umbrella company failing to meet its PAYE liabilities.
Our detailed review of the draft legislation reveals that, in many instances, this joint and several liability would be better described as a ‘collective liability’ where companies could find themselves covering the debts created by someone else.
In the New World post April 2026, if an agency or end client does not have a fully documented audit trail for each worker paid through the Umbrella, by individual pay run and verified through a direct payment of PAYE liability to HMRC, then they could find themselves covering the liabilities of others using the services of that provider.
Many of the examples that could trigger these collective liabilities would be outside the knowledge or control of agencies using those services.
The draft legislation makes clear that there are no excuses that allow removal of these liabilities, which means that the current processes of accreditations, payslip checks, and RTI verifications provide no more than a risk management approach in the New post-April World.
Professional Passport has recognised for some time that an entirely new approach to compliance would be required to provide the levels of protection and certainty demanded by both agencies and end clients.
Professional Passport Fortis has been designed specifically to meet these requirements and ensure that both agencies and end clients have detailed audit trails for each worker on each pay run, together with the evidence of a payment directly to HMRC of the resulting PAYE liability.
Professional Passport believes this is the only way that an agency or end client can protect themselves from the collective liabilities that this new legislation brings.
For more information on this entirely new approach to compliance contact Professional Passport at info@professionalpassport.com.
