A cleverly worded contract to circumvent the law?
Wow! Would an employment agency stoop so low?
Insert sarcasm emoji here
I think the days of LTD and Umbrella schemes are rapidly drawing to a close - quick version
More detail
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Written Decision for Quick
Decision for Quick Road Transport Ltd - GOV.UK -
In a similar way
Decision for Enero Logistics Ltd - GOV.UK -
Also, see Stat Doc No. 5, for the info straight from the mouth of the OTC, see section headed Employees, or âsearch in pageâ for the part that includes the phrase âit is now well understoodâŚâ
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/659bdb50d7737c000df33506/Stat_Doc_5_Legal_Entities_-_Version_14.0.pdf
And I think thatâs where I came in with âAgency paleface - heap big forked tongueâ
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See maybe this is where i am getting confused i thought paye was just that you get paid x per hour (the advertised rate) work 40 hours and your gross pay is 40x out of that comes the tax stamp and pension the remainder is your net pay. Any holiday is a separate payment earned at 12.07% of your hourly wage job done. However there are many many agencies that include holiday pay and other bonusâs in the hourly rate without telling you until you have signed on the dotted line or started work despite asking if it includes holiday pay.
Even better if you ask to have your holiday pay put in a pot they tax you on it as it is earned ie they deduct the holiday pay from the net and then tax you again when you claim it. The standered response to this is everyone has to pay tax on what they earn.
I also thought that if a company wished to use an outside payroll company they were responsible to make sure the payroll company was doing things correctly and using a registered accountant etc. Yet it seams they only have to check once despite the payroll company changing multiple times
If your holiday pay has been included in your hourly pay
Your employer might say that you donât get holiday pay because your holiday pay is included in your hourly rate. This is called ârolled-upâ holiday pay. You might be paid this way if youâre an agency worker or on a zero-hours contract.
Employers shouldnât use rolled up holiday pay. If they do, show them the guidance on GOV.UK. If they refuse to change it, consider raising a grievance. If they still refuse to change, talk to an adviser.
From Citizen`s Advice.
A once common fiddle from the agencies, that is currently illegal.
It does seem though that it will be legal again from April 2024 in certain cases.
Rolled-up holiday pay
Holiday pay should be paid at the time when annual leave is taken. An employer cannot include an amount for holiday pay in the hourly rate (known as ârolled-up holiday payâ).
For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, employers will be able to use ârolled-up holiday payâ for irregular hours and part-year workers.
Holiday entitlement: Holiday pay - GOV.UK.
Unless you own your own truck it is highly unlikely that you are anything except an employee. You might be the employee of an agency or a transport company, or indeed of half a dozen different ones, but you are 99.9% sure an employee.
Umbrella/Ltd/Self-Employed are (mostly) schemes to make it appear that workers are being better paid than they are. At the end of the day the workers generally have more hassle and grief, and are worse off financially than if they were bona fide employees of the agency.
You might be a self employed window cleaner with your own van and Ltd Company.
Sit in the cab of someone else`s truck and you are an employed driver for that day.
If you want to understand tax, you need to get the info from an Accountant.
Even the typical âwages clerkâ simply applies information from a set of tables/spreadsheets to the amount youâve earned, and is not highly adept at explaining the whyâs and whereforeâs of the processes.
Thatâs why it amuses me when I see people on here trying to work out how much tax they should have paid and how much theyâre expecting to get back 
Agencies are really (for most of us) just a stop-gap to full time employment; those like Conor who appears to be agency-to-the-core are the only ones who have a large vested interest in worrying about the agencyâs tax affairs.
Even if an employer or agency thinks theyâre âgetting away withâ shunting people onto an unwitting self-employed footing, they are the ones that will be likely to be hauled up in court by the HMRC, and will most likely be found liable for the employees tax that should have been paid
Whereas for an employee, it will more likely be simply a question of paying back in installments anything we might potentially owe, or having our tax code adjusted.
Disclaimer: this is what I have gleaned from speaking to âwages peopleâ across the years, if someone with accountancy qualifications can correct any misunderstandings Iâm happy to be corrected, but Iâm not really bothered about MMR opinions from any âself-trained TN wages clerksâ
EDIT: excellent points from Franglais on ârolled up holiday payâ, Iâve had this myself, knowing what they were doing was a fiddle, but given that agency work is frequently sporadic, and I was seeing it as a stop-gap only, I didnât see it as something to get concerned about.
I have recently worked my first shift for an agency I hadnât previously worked with. They use a separate company for payroll, and rolled up the holiday pay, in a way that the hourly rate of ÂŁ15.50 included that holiday pay. It meant the actual hourly rate was ÂŁ13 odd.
As it is likely to be a shift every now and then with this agency (when my main agency donât have work), I am happy enough with this, but is this rolling up of holiday pay not currently legal?
From the links above, it appears it is not currently correct. If only an occasional job for you, and you seem well aware of it, then it may not be worth fretting about. (See Zac post)
But, it might show you summat about that agency, and theirâŚuummmâŚattitude?
And, why are they using a different company to pay you, I wonder?
Is there a proper payslip showing that you have paid tax and NI correctly?
I think its quite common these days, especially for small outfits, to farm out the wages responsibilities to a third party, itâs certainly true of the place I deliver my ADR courses, where the staff number fewer than ten.
Yea Iâve had a proper payslip for the one shift I have worked with them. That includes Income Tax and NI (although they had used an emergency tax code so I underpaid tax but Iâm sure HMRC will claw that back from me soon enough).
Sounds like they are doing that correctly then. You have received summat official saying your tax is paid, so you seem OK to me.
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coops, things have gotten better with regard to the holiday pay agency workers are entitled to increasing to 28 days and also with regard to equal pay after 12 weeks.
However, with regard to transparency regarding holidays, things have taken a backward step in my opinion. I remember doing agency work around the turn of the millennium when your payslip clearly stated your accrued days. Now if you ask an agency, it will require a payroll query and then most likely a vague answer after about a week, to find out how many days you have.
Then, further to this, you now have to fight to make sure you get the appropriate amount for the days you do take.
In a similar fashion, if you left an agency, holiday pay used to be paid up and a P45 issued as a matter of course. Now, the agency will leave it a few weeks to see what you do and then issue a P45 without paying the holiday pay.
When you say âstampâ, this sounds like something my aunt would say, presumably because in the olden days she would get her card stamped every week to validate the contribution.
Is there something difficult about working this out? In years when I have ended up having a few different income sources and have ended up paying 40% tax when I shouldnât, I have always been able to work out my total taxable pay and then apply the income tax thresholds for that year and work out what my tax rebate should be.
TBH Iâve always found that with wages HMRC have been pretty reliable - the only issues Iâve had were some incorrect Child Benefit âyou have been overpaidâ messages.
My amusement stems from situations where people believe they know for sure how much they are âowedâ , even though the rest of the time they show no real talent for logic, maths or general âbig pictureâ reasoning.
Itâs still quite common for some sections of society (I was going to say âolder generationâ but people younger than me use it) to talk about their âstampâ, though Iâve always thought that was simply because theyâre repeating what theyâve heard without considering its real life meaning.
Much like a lot of HGV drivers will still talk about their âspreadâ rather than just talking about the length of their shift. But yes, it does sound very archaic
i dunno if i fall into the older category at 46 but having older parents and grandparents than others growing up i guess i have picked up a lot of older sayings like i would say five and twenty to eight rather than twenty five to or seven thirty five
I think thatâs a regional thing rather than an age thing; Iâm older than you and Iâve never said five-&-twenty instead of 25