A sports presenter who is seriously ill with Parkinson’s disease was given a £281,000 bill after becoming the latest victim of a tax clampdown.
Dave Clark, who retired in July last year, was found to owe income tax and national insurance after losing a tribunal over how he was paid when he worked for Sky Sports between 2013 and 2018.
A judge at the first-tier tribunal ruled that Clark, 55, ought to have been paid directly as a Sky employee instead of channeling pay through his own personal service company. Workers using this method pay themselves through their company via a combination of salary and dividends, which often saves them tax and national insurance. Several presenters have argued that working this way was standard practice and employers often encouraged it.
According to the verdict published this week, Clark, who worked through a personal service company called Little Piece of Paradise Limited, owed just over £281,000. He is believed to have paid off two thirds of this already.
The case was the latest in a series of high-profile cases brought by HMRC against presenters who worked as what the taxman described as “disguised employees” — where they designated themselves as freelancers for tax purposes. Eamonn Holmes, 61, faces a £250,000 tax bill after losing his case; Lorraine Kelly, 61, won a similar case involving £1.2 million; and Gary Lineker, 60, is being pursued for £4.9 million.
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Robert Salter from Blick Rothenberg said that some cases involving claims over disguised employees are finely balanced, particularly those involving people who had multiple jobs, such as Lineker.
“In practice, the issue of employment versus self-employment can be a very subjective area,” he said.
Dave Chaplin, chief executive of IR35 Shield, a tax compliance expert, said: “Had Mr Clark been a full-time employee of Sky, the likelihood is that he would have been paid less as salary, and therefore not have generated as much tax as he did under the arrangement.”
Clark presented sports coverage on Sky Sports for two decades and was the face of the station’s darts coverage. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s ten years ago but continued to work. He struggled to write the scores down right-handed, so taught himself to write with his left hand.
He retired in July to spend more time with his family and concentrate on charitable work and, in September last year, he walked the length of Hadrian’s Wall to raise £37,000 for Parkinson’s research and treatment.
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Clark declined to comment about the case, but a source said that he would not be appealing against the decision because it was too expensive and the impact of his illness was too great.
