Morning all
The company I work for now is asking for receipts,to prove I’ve done a night out…I’m paid the normal £25 night out allowance then £5 expenses payment by the company…never had to do this before…I can’t give .y week shopping receipts in to prove my nightscaway…I’ve got to spend a pound every night to get a receipt…Is this normal for us trappers now.
I have never been asked to prove i was on a nightout. But there is companys doing it and i dont the in and outs of it.
So yet again the driver can’t be trusted to just be doing what they say they are doing?
Is it to prove to the company, or so that they can prove to HMRC? The answer depends on who needs to know. If it’s the company, I’d be tempted to to take a photo of where I am. That will show the time and date, and coupled with telematics on the truck, should be more than enough.
If it’s for HMRC I think it’s a prescribed method. Receipts etc. You need more info
This has been discussed before. The company is required to periodically select a sample of drivers and check that expenses are actually being incurred for meal allowance and overnight subsistance. Chapter and verse here:
gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manual … l/eim66205
One in the eye for those who contuinue to count meal and overnight allowance as part of their wages Remember the driver gets the full amount paid; the company only gets tax relief on the amount.
Back in the day I worked for an exhibition company and we had a very generous subsistance allowance provided we submitted receipts. We used to periodically sweep the vacated tables in the MSA restaurants, grabbing every receipt which had been left behind. One day at base I was called into the office and they said “We’ve noticed that you don’t seem to eat for several days then you eat £100’s worth of food in half-an-hour”. 
gazmac:
Morning allThe company I work for now is asking for receipts,to prove I’ve done a night out…I’m paid the normal £25 night out allowance then £5 expenses payment by the company…never had to do this before…I can’t give .y week shopping receipts in to prove my nightscaway…I’ve got to spend a pound every night to get a receipt…Is this normal for us TRAPPERS now.
Sounds like a wonderful firm to work for, 
who don’t even trust their drivers enough on something like this…I thought my lot were bad ffs. 
Have you to prove the actual night out, or the fact that you…shock horror 
actually EAT on a night out?
As Harry says, just minesweep the tables in Burgerking of the receipts, job done,.■■■■ em… 
.
It sounds like the sort of firm where their drivers will say ‘■■■■ em’ quite a lot after all this continuous type of torment and harassment …a bit like I do.
Anyhoo you being a ‘TRAPPER’ you should be catching your own food. 
We had a ■■■■ (or should that be dickess?) of a TM who interpreted that we should also provide receipts otherwise she would reduce the payment by taxing us on it! Seriously!
Anyhoo it became a competition between the drivers as to who could put the most receipts in as she had to process each one individually by hand. She gave in before we did as it becomes quite tedious and a tad embarrassing going through the bins in an MSA trawling for cast off receipts. Bonus points were given for ones covered in food waste.
Edit to add; it’s always so much more satisfying when you use their own stick to beat them with.
Place I worked at about 8 years ago they started asking for receipt for stuff we bought on nights out.
Maybe they can claim it back as expenses.?
I just used hand them recpits from weatherspoons
Tesco’s etc anything I bought on nights out that I could get a receipt for I did. Was no big deal really.
Don’t know what they made of it seeing receipts for curry houses pubs etc
And sure some nights used spend more than £25 by time factor on a good breakfast day after.
But no issue for me plus used get paid night allowance cash in hand on a Friday.
I miss the. Days used go shopping put fuel in car and still have enough left.
Hardly ever used to withdraw money from my back account miss getting paid cash
gazmac:
Morning allThe company I work for now is asking for receipts,to prove I’ve done a night out…I’m paid the normal £25 night out allowance then £5 expenses payment by the company…never had to do this before…I can’t give .y week shopping receipts in to prove my nightscaway…I’ve got to spend a pound every night to get a receipt…Is this normal for us trappers now.
I maybe getting the wrong end of the stick here, but doesn’t your digi tacho readout prove you had a nightout? 
kevmac47:
gazmac:
Morning allThe company I work for now is asking for receipts,to prove I’ve done a night out…I’m paid the normal £25 night out allowance then £5 expenses payment by the company…never had to do this before…I can’t give .y week shopping receipts in to prove my nightscaway…I’ve got to spend a pound every night to get a receipt…Is this normal for us trappers now.
I maybe getting the wrong end of the stick here, but doesn’t your digi tacho readout prove you had a nightout?
No. all a tacho will record is you’ve had daily rest.
Same as when take a break for your 45 all it will show is you had an 11hr break .doesn’t say where you had it.
Guess these days with trackers be easy. Enough to see where trucks have been parked overnight
edd1974:
kevmac47:
gazmac:
Morning allThe company I work for now is asking for receipts,to prove I’ve done a night out…I’m paid the normal £25 night out allowance then £5 expenses payment by the company…never had to do this before…I can’t give .y week shopping receipts in to prove my nightscaway…I’ve got to spend a pound every night to get a receipt…Is this normal for us trappers now.
I maybe getting the wrong end of the stick here, but doesn’t your digi tacho readout prove you had a nightout?
No. all a tacho will record is you’ve had daily rest.
Same as when take a break for your 45 all it will show is you had an 11hr break .doesn’t say where you had it.Guess these days with trackers be easy. Enough to see where trucks have been parked overnight
Digi tacho, records Lat/long on the printout.
stop having dodgys then
biggriffin:
Digi tacho, records Lat/long on the printout.
I must admit I never knew that. I’m sure I’ve never seen it on a printout, is it a new thing?
I’ve not heard of it either (that doesn’t mean it’s not true). If it’s correct then why do we bother with begin/end country?
Yep it’s true , I’ve seen in on a printout when I got my new daf xf in November
All new tachos are called ‘smart tachos’ and mandatory for newly registered vehicles since 19 June 2019 and definitely record your co-ordinates on start and end duty, as well as at random points in the day it seems (this could be the overspeed infringements thinking about it) print out seems to be a lot longer than they used to and that’s probably some of it. thinking about it I dont think it asks me start and end location anymore and can’t say I ever noticed.
You can notice the smart tacho on the dafs that have it as they have some sort of box next to the lane departure sensor on the top of the windscreen
info on it here: dtc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dtc_smart_ … h.php.html
apparently dvsa have the availability to download the vehicle unit by bluetooth or something similar purely by driving along side, not sure if its true or just a rumour. I’ve also heard the new smart motorways have some sort of system that enables them to download too as you drive past but this sounds far more unrealistic.
It’s a long time since I’ve read any of the HMRC rules but I believe the HMRC has an agreement that the £25 night out allowance can be paid tax free without any questions asked across the whole of the transport sector. This is separate from the “usual” expense claims that people can make. “Expenses” have to have receipts so the company can prove to HMRC that the amount has actually been paid. I suspect your company is asking for receipts solely to prove the £5 expense part to HMRC rather than for you to prove you had a night out. HMRC won’t go looking through tacho records or gps data. They will only accept receipts as proof. I believe the £25 amount hasn’t been increased for many, many years now so the simple solution would be for HMRC to increase the amount but that would be too easy.
Blackadda1:
It’s a long time since I’ve read any of the HMRC rules but I believe the HMRC has an agreement that the £25 night out allowance can be paid tax free without any questions asked across the whole of the transport sector. This is separate from the “usual” expense claims that people can make. “Expenses” have to have receipts so the company can prove to HMRC that the amount has actually been paid. I suspect your company is asking for receipts solely to prove the £5 expense part to HMRC rather than for you to prove you had a night out. HMRC won’t go looking through tacho records or gps data. They will only accept receipts as proof. I believe the £25 amount hasn’t been increased for many, many years now so the simple solution would be for HMRC to increase the amount but that would be too easy.
I am sure you are right about this, I think it’s a legal requirement that companies have to have some kind of proof that drivers are having a night out if HMRC does a check on a firm.
I am sure I read something on the owner driver foram about this. It’s just a arse covering exercise for the company’s .
elsa Lad:
Blackadda1:
It’s a long time since I’ve read any of the HMRC rules but I believe the HMRC has an agreement that the £25 night out allowance can be paid tax free without any questions asked across the whole of the transport sector. This is separate from the “usual” expense claims that people can make. “Expenses” have to have receipts so the company can prove to HMRC that the amount has actually been paid. I suspect your company is asking for receipts solely to prove the £5 expense part to HMRC rather than for you to prove you had a night out. HMRC won’t go looking through tacho records or gps data. They will only accept receipts as proof. I believe the £25 amount hasn’t been increased for many, many years now so the simple solution would be for HMRC to increase the amount but that would be too easy.I am sure you are right about this, I think it’s a legal requirement that companies have to have some kind of proof that drivers are having a night out if HMRC does a check on a firm.
I am sure I read something on the owner driver foram about this. It’s just a arse covering exercise for the company’s .
So if that IS the case (not convinced btw) how do they define a ‘night out’ ?
My argument has always been when your time is up down the road it is YOUR time,.and you’re free to do whatever tf you want with it, (which kinda dispels the dayman’s old ‘unpaid security guard’ b/s)
So…say you were 1 hour from home and your mate/mrs picked you up to go home, to come back to the truck in the morning, do they consider that as a ‘night out’.
I know the answer I’m just challenging the theory.
With regard to just the night out proof, how can you provide a receipt if you park in a layby miles from anywhere? If they have trackers I would be telling them to check my location on that, or provide my own gps data from google maps ‘‘my timeline’’ which will show where you have been with times. They are also short changing you on the night out money, they can claim up to £26.20 per night, I’d be asking them to up it myself.