I decided to send email to Transport company in St Helens offering my services driving
hgv1 vehicle on a self employed basis. After a week I received a response asking me to come along for a chat. What I would like to know would it be a good idea to draw up some sort of contract ie weekly pay and my rates or anything else?
How could you go and work self employed for someone without letting them know you terms in writing.
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employed
burnley-si:
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employed
I think you might be wrong with that one 
mugshot:
burnley-si:
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employedI think you might be wrong with that one
I do believe Si is quite correct
mugshot:
burnley-si:
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employedI think you might be wrong with that one
Think he may be right, if there’s a full time job why don’t they give it to you
mac12:
mugshot:
burnley-si:
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employedI think you might be wrong with that one
Think he may be right, if there’s a full time job why don’t they give it to you
So I cant go direct to any transport company under a Ltd company?
mugshot:
mac12:
mugshot:
burnley-si:
and its also illegal to work for 1 company self employedI think you might be wrong with that one
Think he may be right, if there’s a full time job why don’t they give it to you
So I cant go direct to any transport company under a Ltd company?
Ltd and self employed are totally different. You stated in your original post that you were going to offer your services as self employed, now that may well not be possible if only working for one company, as several have pointed out.
See these links:
hmrc.gov.uk/employment-status
gov.uk/employment-status/se … contractor
If however you are going to form a Ltd. company and offer your services then it is no longer Self Employed.
However even through a Ltd company that only supplies services to one employer you may well still be considered an employee and fall foul of the tax laws.
See here.
I don’t think it’s illegal per se, as no offence would be committed by doing so - But HMRC will take a dim view of it and will come after you (and the employing firm) for the relevant tax and NI contributions that should have been paid.
I ain’t got a clue if it’s legal or not but WTF happened to seeing or hearing about a job going to see the gaffer and working there full time.
Everything seems to be agency and self employed,it might suit some but I’d rather be on the books with a decent company
should of said in my original post that I was LTD. Whats the way round it with the tax? is it still work for the agency and go direct with a company a couple of days a week?
mugshot:
should of said in my original post that I was LTD. Whats the way round it with the tax? is it still work for the agency and go direct with a company a couple of days a week?
In that case you can still easily be considered an employee of both and liable for PAYE and NIC. Without knowing your personal circumstances I can’t answer that question, the only thing you can do is talk to an accountant and get his opinion in writing making sure that he will be liable for any HMRC recourse, so you can use that when the HMRC comes knocking.
In general working for several companies either as Self Employed or as a LTD, is still not sufficient to prevent you from paying your tax, if it was that easy everyone would do it.
I gave you several links above, make sure you meet all those requirements, then go talk to an accountant/ Tax sollicitor.
As a Director of a Ltd Company you can work for either the Agency or direct or both or whoever you want - just invoice them weekly for the money earned…
(Very) Broadly speaking you would (as said Director) be an employee of your company and be subjected to PAYE whoever, you could pay yourself as low amount as you can before you hit the TAX threshold for e.g £192.31 a week paying no TAX but around £4.72 in NI contributions (The threshold for NI contributions is currently £153 per week)then claim daily travel (45p per mile) & meal allowance (£10 per day)& Night out allowance - then whatever money is left over pay yourself as a dividend which is still subject to TAX (could be as low as only 10%!) but not NI Contributions…
yorkshire terrier:
WTF happened to seeing or hearing about a job going to see the gaffer and working there full time.
Everything seems to be agency and self employed,it might suit some but I’d rather be on the books with a decent company
+1
yorkshire terrier:
I ain’t got a clue if it’s legal or not but WTF happened to seeing or hearing about a job going to see the gaffer and working there full time.
Everything seems to be agency and self employed,it might suit some but I’d rather be on the books with a decent company
I hear what you’re saying…totally valid point you have!
I’m currently PAYE direct with a company after a year on Agency (Self Employed - sole trader)…and to be honest regardless of the money side of things I’m about to go back to being self employed - but Ltd Co this time - the reason? Purely because it’s driving me potty being at someone’s beck and call and being tied to one employer (which has it’s benefits i know…But Agency work for me - again, money aside - just gave me more flexibility… at my age i value my ‘time’ over money… 
I’d sooner just work 3 maybe 4 days a week…and be in control of the work i carry out…
No right or wrongs on this mind… purely personal circumstances of course… 
Torkey:
yorkshire terrier:
I ain’t got a clue if it’s legal or not but WTF happened to seeing or hearing about a job going to see the gaffer and working there full time.
Everything seems to be agency and self employed,it might suit some but I’d rather be on the books with a decent companyI hear what you’re saying…totally valid point you have!
I’m currently PAYE direct with a company after a year on Agency (Self Employed - sole trader)…and to be honest regardless of the money side of things I’m about to go back to being self employed - but Ltd Co this time - the reason? Purely because it’s driving me potty being at someone’s beck and call and being tied to one employer (which has it’s benefits i know…But Agency work for me - again, money aside - just gave me more flexibility… at my age i value my ‘time’ over money…
No right or wrongs on this mind… purely personal circumstances of course…
So why not go PAYE with the agency, claim expenses back on P87 but pick when you want to work best of both worlds.
100% with torkey if i ever go back to driving it will be on agency and only 3-4 days per week sod doing 60 hours again.
Torkey:
yorkshire terrier:
I ain’t got a clue if it’s legal or not but WTF happened to seeing or hearing about a job going to see the gaffer and working there full time.
Everything seems to be agency and self employed,it might suit some but I’d rather be on the books with a decent companyI hear what you’re saying…totally valid point you have!
I’m currently PAYE direct with a company after a year on Agency (Self Employed - sole trader)…and to be honest regardless of the money side of things I’m about to go back to being self employed - but Ltd Co this time - the reason? Purely because it’s driving me potty being at someone’s beck and call and being tied to one employer (which has it’s benefits i know…But Agency work for me - again, money aside - just gave me more flexibility… at my age i value my ‘time’ over money…
No right or wrongs on this mind… purely personal circumstances of course…
If I were only wanting a few days a week I would probably look at agency as I think it would be best for that situation.
The thing I can’t understand is blokes wanting full time work going down this road.
Iv know many a driver over the years rave on about how great this agency rate is and how NOVA and umbrella are the best way to work and always want to show you there wage slips to prove they were earning a fortune and it’s always ended up going pear shaped somewhere along the line.
Me personally I go to work drive my wagon and collect my wage on a Friday teatime from the boss and that’s the way I like it.
Post about going direct always brings the employed doom merchants out. Nasty agency and self employed drivers taking away all the full time jobs…
Another way of looking at it is it’s the way of the world at the moment, in most industries not just the one we work in. Hence the recent parliment debate on zero hours contracts which is effectively what we are talking about here.
Why not accept things are the way they are and try and make it work for you. Agency/direct work is no bed of roses, its a mixture of work and downtime. Suppose the art is earning enough when you are at work to cover for the downtime. Most agency drivers dream of being in your position and cutting out the agent, and hence 99% of the false promises and lies.
However, wether direct or through agent Ltd or self employed you need to be an expert on IR35. This is the HMRC legislation that posts here are refering to. Google it search on here you will find plenty of debate. I would suggest you actually read the thing in full on hmrc and form your own opinion. The reason I say this is I think the hmrc have left this open to interpretation and a bit subjective. Read it and form your own position, then if the inspector turns up you will be able to argue your own defence, better than “some agent/bloke on trucknet” told me it was OK.
My feelings are what we do is no worse than the thousands of contractors and management consultants out there who use the same set up to work on long term contacts. If one day the hmrc have enough manpower to actually take this on there will be easier low hanging fruit than the limited company driver.
Just dont work for one company for too long. The logical reason for them taking you on direct is that they can drop you when they need too. When you would work for someone else and cover yourself for IR35. If they employ you constantly the rate you are charging is probably wrong as you are making it cheaper for them to employ you this way. From my calculations you should be 50% more than their employed driver to stop this from happening, roughly. So if they pay £8ph you want £12. If direct drivers charge less than this I can see why employed drivers would get upset as we would be driving down the wage rate. Obviously we might have to work for less when the agent cut has to be taken into account hence the benefit of going direct.
Most of the posts by people on this site about IR35 are a load of ■■■■ as they misinterpret what it says, but in this scenario laid out by the OP he will definitely fall foul of it as the company will be requiring him to “work” for them on their terms, not his. For example, if the OP decides he’s had enough of driving for them for a week and fancies driving for someone else for a week, the company won’t accept that and he’d be getting some unpleasant phone calls about it. Basically, you need to be able to contract to whoever you want when you want, on your terms to stay the right side of IR35. All this crap posted about needing to “work” for umpteen different companies and can only work for one for x amount of weeks before you have to change to someone else is just that - a load of crap.