Getting paid
Ten per cent of every payment can hang on which name you gave HMRC.
The short answer
Contractors deduct 20 per cent from registered subcontractors and 30 per cent when they cannot verify you — and one reason they cannot is a business name that does not match the one HMRC has.
A contractor rings, the job is yours, and then somebody in his office has to verify you before the first payment. That verification is not a formality. It decides whether the deduction from every payment on that job is 20 per cent or 30.
HMRC is direct about what makes the difference. To be paid at the standard rate you have to give the contractor “the exact same legal business name or trading name you gave when you registered”, along with “your Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) so they can verify you”. Get it wrong and it “could affect how much you get paid”.
What that is worth
The gap between the two rates is ten percentage points. On a thousand pounds of labour that is two hundred deducted instead of three hundred — a hundred pounds, on every thousand, for the length of the job. Nothing about the work changed. The spelling on a form did.
You get it back eventually, through your return. But eventually is the problem: it is your money sitting with HMRC for months instead of paying your suppliers this week.
Why the name goes wrong so often
Because most firms have more than one. There is the name on the van, the name on the invoices, the name that was registered years ago with a middle initial or an “& Son” that nobody uses any more, and the limited company name with Ltd on the end. The contractor’s office types in whichever one they were given — usually the one from your website.
Which is the whole point of this article. The name on your website is very often the name that gets typed into that verification, and nobody has ever checked that it is the right one.
| What goes on the page | What it prevents |
|---|---|
| Your exact registered name, marked as the one for CIS | The verification that fails on a name nobody thought about. |
| The trading name too, if it is different, said plainly | The contractor’s office guessing which of the two to use. |
| Your UTR, or a clear line saying you send it on request | A day of emails before anyone can even run the check. |
| Whether you are registered for CIS at all | A contractor discovering at payment time that you are on the 30 per cent rate. |
| Your VAT position, since it comes up in the same phone call | The second round of questions from the same office. |
Then do the one thing this article is really about: look at the name at the bottom of your own website and compare it, letter for letter, with the name on your CIS registration. Not from memory — from the paperwork. Most people find they match. The ones who do not have just found ten per cent of every payment on the next job.
What is not covered here
Nothing about whether a particular job falls inside the scheme, or how the deductions come back through your return. That depends on your circumstances and belongs with your accountant. What is here is the mechanical part: the rate depends on verification, verification depends on the name and the reference, and both of those are things you publish yourself.