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Generally, HMRC practice is to treat casual and freelance staff engaged on making films, television or radio programmes as employees. However, the strict position is that the principles derived from case law (see E4.205–E4.221) must be applied to each particular set of facts surrounding an engagement. This is no easy task in an industry that, by its nature, produces many borderline situations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, HMRC has published extensive guidance on their view of the correct treatment to be applied¹. In particular, the guidance contains a list of jobs ('grades' in industry terminology) that it accepts as self-employed. This has since been updated as a list downloadable at ESM41218. This is not, though, unconditional and the guidance needs to be considered with some care. It encompasses four situations (described in the guidance in more detail) where payment may be made gross (that is, without the application of PAYE: the rules applying to national insurance contributions may have a different effect — for instance in the case of the 'seven