war1974:
i look after and appreciate my drivers respect and reward as best my constraints will allow, whether this is something simple as PPE
Don’t make out you’re being some altruistic saint just because you give drivers PPE WHICH YOU ARE LEGALLY REQUIRED TO AS AN EMPLOYER. And given gloves are 50p a pop, a hi-viz vest is £2 and a 3/4 length hi-viz coat is £20 as are a pair of work boots (prices correct at Elcocks Driffield as of March 2015), its hardly like its a monumental amount of money.
conor please for once have a day off from being the village idiot and give someone else the chance.
show me where i said it isn’t a legal requirement
You didn’t but you’re the one who said you REWARDED drivers by giving them PPE. Whooptie friggin do. How ■■■■ generous of you to REWARD your drivers by giving them safety gear you’re legally required to.
Winseer:
Wouldn’t the obvious way around this for agencies be to pay drivers what’s on their fuel receipts - and nothing else. This would mean actually getting paid £50 for a £50 tank of fuel rather than the tax relief on £50 of your already earned wages, which costs HMRC a tenner, but the agency nothing at all?
So the tyres on your car never wear out, it doesn’t need servicing or maintenance and it doesn’t lose value when the mileage goes up? What kind of car is this, where do you buy them because I want one?
I put this to the guy on the other end of the taxline phone… He said "IF you use the vehicle you’re claiming for for anything else bar work purposes - then you can’t claim for the “general maintenence” of it. In other words, I’d have to have a van to claim for things like MOT and new tyres etc.
Thing is, when all these things are no longer claimable - the tide goes out on the actual low level of wages that umbrella agencies are paying - and there’s going to be some shifting around to the ones that pay the headline higher hourly rates for the same jobs…
the driving agency i joined at christmas told me the job im doing is 8.50 per hour.
thats a nice little start i though, 1st pay slip comes in at 7.80 ish so i rings them and says wheres my money.
thats right sir
what?
oh £8.50 is what we get then we take our cut and you end up with £7.80
■■■■■■■■■ cant i opt out of the expenses thing then?
yes sir but your pay drops to less than £7 per hour if you do.
■■■■■■■■■
fortunately the job im doing now i get paid 8 hours and usually only do 5-6.
the pay isnt terrible the working conditions are fairly laid back and im getting experience which is the whole point
Winseer:
Wouldn’t the obvious way around this for agencies be to pay drivers what’s on their fuel receipts - and nothing else. This would mean actually getting paid £50 for a £50 tank of fuel rather than the tax relief on £50 of your already earned wages, which costs HMRC a tenner, but the agency nothing at all?
So the tyres on your car never wear out, it doesn’t need servicing or maintenance and it doesn’t lose value when the mileage goes up? What kind of car is this, where do you buy them because I want one?
I put this to the guy on the other end of the taxline phone… He said "IF you use the vehicle you’re claiming for for anything else bar work purposes - then you can’t claim for the “general maintenence” of it. In other words, I’d have to have a van to claim for things like MOT and new tyres etc.
Thing is, when all these things are no longer claimable - the tide goes out on the actual low level of wages that umbrella agencies are paying - and there’s going to be some shifting around to the ones that pay the headline higher hourly rates for the same jobs…
The tide went out on budget day looks like a lot of agencies will be back to paye only. Shortly and about time too
jimmy page:
the driving agency i joined at christmas told me the job im doing is 8.50 per hour.
thats a nice little start i though, 1st pay slip comes in at 7.80 ish so i rings them and says wheres my money.
thats right sir
what?
oh £8.50 is what we get then we take our cut and you end up with £7.80
[zb]! cant i opt out of the expenses thing then?
yes sir but your pay drops to less than £7 per hour if you do.
[zb]!
fortunately the job im doing now i get paid 8 hours and usually only do 5-6.
the pay isnt terrible the working conditions are fairly laid back and im getting experience which is the whole point
Maybe I’m reading this wrong?
You went for a job that was paying £8.50 / hr.
They paid you £7.80 per hour?
And you’re still working for them■■?
hitch:
I was told to do self employed thing you
need PAYE + 13% to make it worthwhile
Then you were told wrong. That 13% will just about cover your holiday pay. You’ll still have to pay employers NI and you can bet your sweet ■■■ that the agency will be charging the company enough to cover your hourly rate, your employers NI and turn a profit but will scam you for employers NI.
The amount of jobs out there that state “+£1 per hour for LTD/Umbrella” is a joke and drivers just go along with it. I’ve seen contracts paying £11 per hour PAYE and £12 LTD/Umbrella. That’s only a 9% increase and wouldn’t even cover holiday pay never mind employers NI. And you have to factor in the Umbrella fees too.
The only way to make it pay is with spurious expenses claims which, as has already been said, are being clamped down upon in the budget.
Think about it, why would an agency insist upon using an Umbrella if it wasn’t somehow benefitting them. If they made the same money off you no matter whether you were PAYE, Umbrella or LTD then why would they care. They care because if they can force you into using an Umbrella they can rip you off with their +£1 scam.
I for one hope they’re stopped altogether and we all have to work PAYE. We should all pay our way.
hitch:
I was told to do self employed thing you
need PAYE + 13% to make it worthwhile
Then you were told wrong. That 13% will just about cover your holiday pay. You’ll still have to pay employers NI and you can bet your sweet ■■■ that the agency will be charging the company enough to cover your hourly rate, your employers NI and turn a profit but will scam you for employers NI.
The amount of jobs out there that state “+£1 per hour for LTD” is a joke and drivers just go along with it. I’ve seen contracts paying £11 per hour PAYE and £12 LTD. That only a 9% increase and wouldn’t even cover holiday pay never mind employers NI. And you have to factor in the Umbrella fees too.
The only way to make it pay is with spurious expenses claims which, as has already been said, are being clamped down upon in the budget.
Think about it, why would an agency insist upon using an Umbrella if it wasn’t somehow benefitting them. If they made the same money off you no matter whether you were PAYE, Umbrella or LTD then why would they care. They care because if they can force you into using an Umbrella they can rip you off with their +£1 scam.
I for one hope they’re stopped altogether and we all have to work PAYE. We should all pay our way.
Wrong actually you wont have to pay employers NI at all u get at credit towards your NI
The only WA to make it pay is to go fully ltd not on an umbrella scheme
They do it to avoid u being a cost because your actual now an expense on there books which makes it more tax efficient for them
I think another reason they like to force Umbrella on you is that the Umbrella company covers any insurance claims. At least, this is what an agency told me when I did some work at Unilever in Cannock.
Winseer:
I put this to the guy on the other end of the taxline phone… He said "IF you use the vehicle you’re claiming for for anything else bar work purposes - then you can’t claim for the “general maintenence” of it. In other words, I’d have to have a van to claim for things like MOT and new tyres etc.
They gave you duff advice which comes as no surprise because it may come as a surprise but they don’t actually know a lot. You can claim for those things however you can only claim for the percentage which is business use. So if the mileage works out 50% business, 50% personal you can only claim half the costs of the MOT, tyres etc.
The problem comes with proving the percentage when you submit a return and they disagree with it as my parents found out last year. The easiest way is recording every journey but if you’re doing that you may as well claim mileage.
Winseer:
I put this to the guy on the other end of the taxline phone… He said "IF you use the vehicle you’re claiming for for anything else bar work purposes - then you can’t claim for the “general maintenence” of it. In other words, I’d have to have a van to claim for things like MOT and new tyres etc.
They gave you duff advice which comes as no surprise because it may come as a surprise but they don’t actually know a lot. You can claim for those things however you can only claim for the percentage which is business use. So if the mileage works out 50% business, 50% personal you can only claim half the costs of the MOT, tyres etc.
The problem comes with proving the percentage when you submit a return and they disagree with it as my parents found out last year. The easiest way is recording every journey but if you’re doing that you may as well claim mileage.
“No deal” I was told. You have no way of proving exactly what the percentages are - so you get nowt. New crackdown system as of a year ago.
I tried to claim for my MOT repairs, and stated that I use my car 75% for work. “Is it a private light goods vehicle or an actual commercial vehicle? - You can use a commercial vehicle for the 25% private use you suggested, but not your own car for 75% work use and expect to be able to claim. I suggest you rent a vehicle, and claim 100% of the rental costs back. This is very popular nowdays Sir…”
Remember many leases limit to 10k miles per year plus and marks or damage to the vehicle you’ll have to pay for so better to buy a low mileage 3-4 year old and run it foe another 5 years
Not a problem for me as I run a van for work purposes and have a car too
The agency I currently work for put me on a umbrella pay scheme without informing me, after I noticed the umbrella company decucted £18 per week from my wages I asked to be PAYE and they moved me without question, I’d never go or advise anybody to be paid by an umbrella pay scheme.
It’s not illegal to advise people to take on a bum deal - any more than it isn’t illegal for banks to advise customers to ditch their hot mortgage, and take out a lousy replacement one instead.
They do it to decrease the amount of money they lose, and increase the amount YOU pay. Perfectly legal, and readily facillitated by bare-faced lies.
The best way to find out if anyone is lying to you about something is to ask specific questions, and when you get an umm and ahh answer - they just don’t want to admit to you just HOW much all this is costing.
The general price for being on Umbrella is around £27-£35 per invoice. You might be paid £1 an hour extra, but since you have to pay tax & insurance on the gross pay - you actually need to work around 50 hours just for this extra £1ph to pay for the umbrella fee. Following this, you’ll be told of “tax deductions” which will “increase your takehome pay”. Trouble is, some of these “deductions” you’re not actually entitled to by HMRC which can land you with a back-taxes bill. No refunds on the umbrella fees of course.
Add it all up - and you’ll quickly wonder what exactly it IS you are paying over a grand a year for… There’s nothing concrete you’re getting back at all!
Umbrella is there for the employer’s convienience - not the staff that go on it.
It isn’t compulsary to join the umbrella, but there are plenty of agencies out there that on saying “You don’t have to join, and you can go PAYE” will quickly mark-down your hourly rate, and give you a whole lot less work compared to the other bod who just “coughs up and gets on with it”.
Surprisingly it not just driving jobs the agencies pulling this ‘umbrella stunt’ with. One of the other things I do is build electrical control panels. Like driving that has always involved filling variable demand in the business and has used agency temps.
Latest ‘stunt’ two separate agencies have tried to pull for two totally separate clients, is insisting the client will only take people through an umbrella scheme and basically refusing a PAYE option. Needless to say I refused point blank to accept this sort of blackmail which fair enough probably cost me a three month contract, but at least I know the taxman will never be knocking on my door in the future.
Forgetting for one minute anyone’s legal definition and any monetary differences, when it comes to doing the actual work, there is absolutely zilch difference between the paye worker and the umbrella worker. Neither has more control over the other as to what work they do, or what time they start or finish the day. I personally would never delude myself that I am in any way ‘self employed’ when we know that it is just another agency ploy to offset their responsibilities as an employer onto some other poor sap.
It’s the worst of both worlds… You’re “self employed” when it comes to being disqualified from benefits like Statutory Sick Pay, Holiday Pay, & a workplace Union but you’re PAYE when it comes to the PAYE “minimum wage” being adhered to rather than this “unofficial” minimum wage contractor’s rate I hear about.
As I’ve already said above that £1ph extra doesn’t even cover the cost of the umbrella commission unless you max hours out every week - what does one do about “not getting statutory leave 20 days a year” as drivers are required to take these 20 days off by law? - Since you still have to take those 20 days off - the last thing you want is to NOT be paid for them - right?
Even worse is the cowboy outfit that will deduct hard cash from your pay - and pay you a “holiday rate” based on your average hours for the past 13 weeks… Not good if you’ve worked flat out for 13 weeks, then get hardly any work for the next 13 weeks, and suddenly the boss tells you "You’ve gotta have some holiday right now mate - there’s absolutely zilch work for next week"… Only to find you’re “holiday pay” amounts to 1-2 days worth of money as your “average” has dribbled away these past few weeks. What you pay into your own holiday pot should remain yours no matter what is the correct way to do “holiday pots”… FFS it’s not a radiactive isotope with a half-life - so why build a decay into something you’ve already paid for?
I’m not truly sure how these umbrella schemes would affect your accrual of state pension?
On the weeks you are not working I believe I am right in saying you would not be entitled to income support so would receive no NI credit from the employment service towards your pension entitlement.
This is where it gets confusing as true self employed pay 9% of their annual income as NI if that annual income is above £8060, but what happens on umbrella schemes for all those weeks where there is no work?
Winseer, I presume you mean after you have paid £3-£3.5k for your licences and met ongoing costs of £50-£100 for your medical, not to mention your digi card and driver CPC etc etc etc.
Post 7/5/13 you may even be able to achieve a degree in England for the same costs but with greater earning potential and a lot less grief.
global.
Winseer:
As I’ve already said above that £1ph extra doesn’t even cover the cost of the umbrella commission unless you max hours out every week
I was offered an umbrella contract last week but it was 23% over the PAYE rate which is what it should be. £1 an hour more and they’re literally taking the money out your wallet. All that’s missing is someone standing in front of you saying gimme your wallet. The end result is still the same.
