BBC tax panic as Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd told to pay £400,000 bill

/ Mike Buchanan

In today’s Times:

Dozens of BBC presenters face being forced to settle substantial tax bills after a tribunal ruled that a news anchor must pay more than £400,000.

Christa Ackroyd, 60, hosted the regional news programme Look North for 12 years and was paid as a contractor through a personal service company to minimise her tax bills.

HMRC argued, however, that from 2006 to 2013 she was effectively a BBC employee and was therefore liable for £419,151 in unpaid income tax and national insurance.

A first-tier tax tribunal yesterday found in favour of HMRC and ordered the presenter to pay the bill. The tribunal judge said: “We do not consider that Ms Ackroyd could fairly be described as being in business on her own account.” The ruling is a blow to other BBC presenters who declared themselves to be self-employed. It was disclosed in 2016 that more than 100 of the corporation’s past and present employees were under investigation for alleged tax avoidance over their use of personal service companies. Presenters for other media organisations are also affected.

The National Union of Journalists has accused the BBC of pressing female presenters to leave staff jobs and become self-employed while allowing male presenters to remain on contract.

In his ruling, Judge Jonathan Cannan said that Ms Ackroyd’s appeal did not set a precedent. He noted, however, that it was “one of a number of other appeals involving television presenters and personal service companies”. It is the first ruling for some time in the media sector related to IR35, the tax legislation covering off-payroll working. Other presenters are now expected to settle their cases rather than risk the cost of defeat.

Judge Cannan accepted Ms Ackroyd’s evidence that the BBC suggested that she be paid through a personal service company after poaching her from Calendar, the ITV rival. Her accountant advised that the arrangement was in order.

The tribunal found that she was not self-employed, because she was obliged to work at least 225 days a year and the BBC had the right to specify what services her private company would provide. Under tax rules a person is selfemployed if they can decide what work they do and when.

An HMRC spokesman said: “Employment status is never a matter of choice; it is always dictated by the facts and when the wrong tax is being paid we put things right.” Many freelance BBC presenters have been moved on to staff contracts after rules were changed last year to make the corporation responsible for deciding their tax status.

A BBC spokesman said: “The use of personal service companies is entirely legitimate and common practice across the industry as it provides flexibility for both individuals and organisations. An independent review conducted in 2012 found that there was no evidence that the BBC had attempted to avoid income tax or NIC by contracting in this way.”

Ms Ackroyd left the BBC in 2013 amid a dispute about her tax situation. She said in a statement: “I am delighted that the judge has recognised that I have never acted in any way dishonestly. HMRC and the judge stressed they do not regard me as a ‘tax cheat’ nor have I ever sought to avoid or evade tax.”

She added that the £419,151 figure did not take into account corporation tax she had already paid through her personal service company. She is considering an appeal.

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7 thoughts on “BBC tax panic as Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd told to pay £400,000 bill”

  1. “The National Union of Journalists has accused the BBC of pressing female
    presenters to leave staff jobs and become self-employed while allowing
    male presenters to remain on contract.”

    … which just coincidentally makes it look like the BBC is paying higher salaries to men. The money paid to “self-employed” women was ignored in the recent round of lying about pay comparisons at the BBC.

    Yet now it looks like those women might have to pay their fair share of tax, this suddenly becomes a “gender issue”.

    How strange

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    • I’d be pretty certain that this reflects the ages/start dates. The BBCs male “staffers” in the news recently are generally long term employees probably simply continuing to be employees out of inertia. The flurry of recruiting women to achieve “gender balance” will no doubt mean women predominate in the numbers recruited in recent years, the period of this new “wheeze” .
      This is also likely to mean as the men retire, even Humphries may do one day, the Gender Balance will swing in favour of women, doubt there’ll be any more fuss made of that than in any other public service “dominated” by women.
      Earn more and pay less tax? I doubt any of the self employed staff whatever their genitalia took much “pressing” .

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  2. Time was when the bbc was more like one big ‘family’, and all sorts of services like libraries, staff banking counters, and internal post deliveries etc. were provided in-house, and most, if not all, people were bbc staff with bbc staff numbers.

    The corporation then ran it’s own body of smartly uniformed and badged bbc messengers – often ex military types attracted by that same bbc uniform.

    Stories are attached to this, which I shan’t try your patience with here, you’ll be glad to know.

    Anyone cashing rubber cheques at the cashiers was threatened with having a red stripe superimposed across the face on their ID card photos.
   I remarked to my then boss that if this misfortune befell one, you could aways paint a red line on your face a bit like David Bowie on the album 'Aladdin Sane' saying "no, I really DO have a red line across my face - look...
  Being Irish, in all senses, he heartily approved of this wizard wheeze, laughing like a drain the while.

     When the dalek voiced John Birt was theoretcally employed by his own 'company' and thus became a 'Freelance Director General'(!) I knew the game was up though, and the the times,

    they were a-changin’….

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  4. “The National Union of Journalists has accused the BBC of pressing female
    presenters to leave staff jobs and become self-employed while allowing
    male presenters to remain on contract.”

    So therefore female presenters affected by this decision will be queuing up to sue the BBC for giving them the wrong advice. Good! Another nail in the BBC coffin.

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  5. “Christa Ackroyd, 60, hosted the regional news programme Look North for 12 years and was paid as a contractor through a personal service company to minimise her tax bills.”

    “I am delighted that the judge has recognised that I have never acted in
    any way dishonestly. HMRC and the judge stressed they do not regard me
    as a ‘tax cheat’ nor have I ever sought to avoid or evade tax.”

    yeah.. right…

    head of a regional news programme and you didn’t think that you were evading tax?

    you can’t be very smart to think that there was no evasion.

    As slowcoach below has pointed out about john birt, everyone( and I mean everyone including the public) knew that the “self employed” status was a con at the point John Birt was caught..

    who would in their right mind employ ackroyd if she is either willfully deceitful or willfully clueless about the self employed status..

    no sympathy for anyone regardless of gender at the BBC who play this tax evasion( and yes i call it tax evasion not tax avoidance) game.

    its time these people ( especially the “self employed” ) acted so and instead of in name only.

    BTW I watched a documentary about china( silk road) with carrie grace( before she was promoted).

    I wouldn’t have anything positive to say about her ability( even before I knew about her complaints about pay) based on that one single documentary I saw of her. I find it very bizzarre that she was promoted at all( with the exception of politics). Maggie Aderin-Pocock would have made a better presenter than Carrie Grace…

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