Taxation body to crack down on unpaid fashion
interns
Employment Law & HR update 21/11/2011
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has announced that it
is planning to crack down on fashion companies offering unpaid
internships.
Many young people who take on unpaid internships are believed to be
at ‘high risk’ of abuse as the companies breach national minimum
wage laws, according to internal documents from HMRC. The fashion
industry has been singled out as it is 'well known for the use of
interns,' the document added.
The taxation body has created a taskforce who will visit fashion
companies across the country to inspect their internship set-up and
see if the interns are actually working or merely shadowing
permanent staff members.
This 12-person ‘dynamic response’ unit will be charged with the
ability to investigate accounts and pose questions to managers in a
bid to discover if national minimum wage abuse is taking
place.
The response from HMRC has come about as a result of criticism from
the Low Pay Commission regarding the sheer lack of action taken to
stamp out this wage abuse.
Many fashion companies have offered unpaid internships in the past,
and continue to do so, with some lasting as long as nine months or
more. The majority of the firms say that their internships involve
‘shadowing’ rather than ‘working.’
“If you are in that industry and you have interns, there's no
reason to think that we won't be knocking on your door,” a source
from HMRC told the Guardian newspaper, confirming that the crack
down would be targeting fashion firms of all sizes.
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