PUBLIC SECTOR

Data suggests firms are turning away from CEST as critics say it fails to reflect recent court rulings

Use of HMRC’s own tool for checking compliance with the UK’s controversial IR35 freelancer tax rules has fallen sharply, according to Freedom of Information data obtained by tax adviser IR35 Shield.

The Check Employment Status for Tax tool, better known as CEST, was created to help firms decide whether contractors should be taxed like employees. But usage fell 43 percent during the 2025-26 tax year, and dropped 71 percent between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from 458,894 determinations to 135,178.

The findings suggest that firms continue to abandon CEST in favor of alternative status assessment solutions and more comprehensive compliance processes, IR35 Shield said.

CEO Dave Chaplin said: “The majority of firms we speak to for the first time are either lifting blanket bans or seeking to move away from using CEST, having realized it is not compulsory to use, nor does it give them the level of certainty they need.”

The decline is not the result of changes to the tool or legislation, according to IR35 Shield.

“The underlying CEST logic has not been updated since November 2019 and was based on HMRC’s view of the law at that time. Despite the courts dismissing HMRC’s position in key areas, upon which the tool was based, the tool has not been updated,” Chaplin said.

IR35 Shield pointed out that HMRC lost a recent employment status case with Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL). Entering the facts of the case into CEST would have produced an indeterminate result, it said.

In 2022, the Public Accounts Committee Committee (PAC) found that central government was spending hundreds of millions of pounds to cover tax owed for individuals wrongly assessed as self-employed. “Government departments and agencies owed, or expected to owe, HMRC £263 million in 2020-21 due to incorrect administration of the rules,” the House of Commons spending watchdog said.

Part of the compliance problem was down to HMRC’s guidance and the CEST tool. “Some questions within CEST were difficult to interpret correctly, and the guidance was long, too general in scope and not integrated into CEST itself,” the PAC said.

In a statement sent to The Register, a spokesperson at HMRC, said: 

“We always expected use of the tool to reduce as employers familiarised themselves with the 2021 off-payroll working reforms, and the majority of those who use the tool are satisfied with the service they receive.

“The tool is rigorously tested against case law and we’ll stand by the tool’s results, so long as the information provided is correct in accordance with our guidance.” ®

Polymarket has been paying online creators to post deceptive videos that show them making lucrative bets on the prediction market, according to a new investigation in the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ said that it analyzed 1,100 videos about Polymarket and also viewed instructional materials that the company provided to creators. Many of those videos were reportedly filmed on “near-perfect copies” of the Polymarket website, while featuring trades and winnings that were not real. The creator videos were then amplified by a “social-media army” deployed by a marketing contractor.

The WSJ said the company also told those creators not to specify that they’d been paid by Polymarket, although the creators started adding “@polymarket partner” to their bios after journalists began asking questions.

Razeen Khan, a college student and creator who worked with Polymarket until March, compared the practice to commercials that make fast food look more appealing than it is in real life: “We’re depicting what actually happens.”

Polymarket said it is “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and plans to conduct an audit of its promotional content.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun topic, though it might be better suited for October. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Heebie-jeebies

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Boo!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• WILES, WILL, WILLS, SOOT, SOGS, SEEM, BUST, BUTS, HIVE, HIVES, JUMP

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• CREEPS, SHIVERS, JITTERS, WILLIES, BUTTERFLIES

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is GOOSEBUMPS. To find it, start with the G that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind up and around.

Access to safe drinking water remains a challenge for billions of people worldwide, but a new invention from researchers in South Korea could make the process much simpler. A self-powered floating capsule that fits in the palm of a hand can reportedly test water quality and disinfect unsafe water without relying on batteries, external power, or chemical treatments.

A simple shake is all this water purification capsule needs

According to a recent paper published in Nature Water, the device, called the Floating-induced Detection-Guided Disinfection (FDGD) capsule, generates electricity when shaken. An internal magnet moves through a coil to produce enough power to activate a built-in sensor that measures the water’s electrical conductivity, giving users an indication of its quality through a connected smartphone or smartwatch.

If the water passes the initial safety check, the capsule can simply be left floating inside it. Gentle movement from waves or even walking while carrying the container generates static electricity, powering microscopic nanorods on the capsule’s surface. These create strong electrostatic forces that damage the membranes of nearby bacteria and viruses through a process known as electroporation, effectively neutralizing them without adding chemicals.

In laboratory testing involving containers holding up to four liters of water, researchers reported that the device successfully inactivated 99.9999% of bacteria and viruses, including E. coli, across multiple water samples. The technology was detailed in the journal Nature Water, with researchers describing it as an affordable, decentralized solution for regions where conventional water treatment infrastructure is unavailable.

The clever part isn’t the disinfection, it’s the lack of dependencies

Interestingly, plenty of portable water purifiers already exist, but most depend on disposable filters, chemicals, UV lamps, or rechargeable batteries. This capsule sidesteps all of those requirements by harvesting energy from simple physical movement, making it particularly attractive for disaster relief, camping, remote communities, or humanitarian deployments where electricity isn’t guaranteed.

Of course, the FDGD capsule is still a research prototype and has yet to prove itself outside controlled testing. But if it can be commercialized at the low cost envisioned by its creators, it could put a reliable water testing and purification tool into millions of hands. Sometimes, the biggest breakthroughs aren’t massive treatment plants or billion-dollar infrastructure projects. Sometimes, they’re small enough to fit in your pocket.