ScaniaUltimate:
Not everybody was ‘ripped off’ by operating as a Limited Company.
Many drivers were fully aware of their situation & used it to great effect to increase the price they could obtain for doing work & offsetting expenses.
The clued up ones did work other than just driving trucks often leading them to subcontract work to others.The truth is being self employed is way more financially beneficial than being PAYE if you put in the effort & hours.
However I completely accept those who were forced or coerced on to self employment or umbrella schemes should rightly be seeking recompense now.
You are correct that many workers/drivers operate through a limited company and as long as you meet the criteria for that then it is fine. Many, many workers/drivers operated as Self Employed but used someone else’s vehicle, were told where they were going, the vehicle would have been loaded by the warehouse workers, they will not likely hold their own insurance to protect the company from negligence by the worker/driver etc and the courts argue that these people should have been paid as PAYE. In most cases they were not paid that way because the Agency/End Client did not want the accountability of both Employment Rights nor Employment Taxes. HMRC are now performing checks on such companies and presenting them with extremely large fines hence why Drivers have seen this shift towards a PAYE model.
This now opens the door for these workers/drivers to claim back both Holiday Pay and Workplace Pension Contributions they were entitled to but never knew. Any worker/driver can register a claim free and the chances of them actually winning are very, very good.
This has happened in many sectors, Banking, NHS, Construction, Driving, Rail Network, Estate Agency and many more, UBER Taxi have already won their case and now the others will follow. Those that do not have a valid claim will be told so but we do not anticipate there will be many as long as they can present the correct details.
Workplace Pension claims will go back to 2012
Holiday Pay will go back up to 15 years
HMRC have no issue with people operating through their own Limited Company as long as they pass the criteria for being outside of IR35 including the Supervision, Direction and Control test.