ESM4001 - Particular occupations: agricultural workers – harvest workers

An engager should not simply accept a worker's claim that he or she is treated as self-employed by the Inland Revenue. Harvest workers are rarely self-employed. On the other hand there are exceptions such as

• an agricultural engineer who undertakes threshing, ploughing, haulage etc using his own equipment, or
• a gangmaster who is not himself an employee of the farmer. (In practice payments to the leader of an itinerant group of workers will be treated similarly.)

You should however tell the farmer to record details of the name and address of the person to whom the payments were made, the amounts paid, and the relevant dates.