Taxman to get tough on firms 'abusing' interns

 
Tough talk: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the launch of the Building a Creative Nation campaign
James Fletcher
21 November 2013

Employers who use interns as unpaid labour are to be targeted by the tax authorities.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has identified 200 potential employers who are to be investigated over possible abuses of internship rules.

Speaking at the launch of a job and apprenticeship scheme for young people in the creative industries, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “Employers must understand that the authorities will come down on them like a ton of bricks if they use internships for, in effect, unpaid or very low-paid full-time employment.”

Tony Hall, director-general of the BBC, Kanya King of the Mobo awards, Live Nation concert promoters boss Paul Nathan and designer Wayne Hemingway threw their weight behind the Building a Creative Nation campaign.

The Creative and Cultural Skills agency aims to create 50,000 fairly paid jobs, paid internships and apprenticeships for the young — based on merit. But at the campaign launch at the Southbank Centre, former Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Doug Richard said other obstacles to opportunities in the creative industries remained.

He accused Education Secretary Michael Gove’s reforms of threatening to turn the creative industries into the “road-kill” of the economic recovery.

He said: “This country out-punches all other nations for its creative expertise.

“Our education systems need to carve out powerful pathways for the future of our creative industries — not pathways of broken promises, which is what we’re creating through Gove’s education system.”

Martin Bright, founder of The Creative Society, a youth employment charity, said: “For too long the HMRC has turned a blind eye to those who break the law. I hope the Deputy Prime Minister will ensure legal action is taken against those in the creative industries and beyond who continue to flout the minimum wage legislation.”

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