"Of course, saying that someone doesn't understand their rules because they lose appeals is nonsense unless you also know how many cases are appealed."
There are several points on this. I'll make a few below, but this is far from an exhaustive list.
Firstly, HMRC can decide whether to contest an appeal. The fact that they are contesting cases which are being pretty much thrown out of court strongly suggests that they don't understand the rules. If they did, they would look at the case on appeal, realise it's clearly outside IR35 and drop it. Instead, they seem to truly believe these are inside cases and waste vast amounts of taxpayers money on legal fees to fight the appeal.
Secondly, this being the case, it strongly suggests that HMRC are also wrongly applying the law in cases which are not appealed. These could be people who don't have the funds, resources or will to fight the case, but they would still be being charged too much tax.
Finally, you only have to look at HMRCs CEST tool to know that they either do not understand the law or wilfully misrepresent it. The fact that MOO is excluded is, on its own, proof of this.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
