Hi everyone.
I work for Driver Hire who use their own umbrella. I can’t seem to get the info I require so I thought I’d ask you. Every time I submit a timesheet, I also submit an expenses form. When I get my pay advice, it says on it, “Outstanding expenses carried forward ££££,” the figure increases every week. How do I claim this money back? I know that expenses a re offset against the amount of tax I pay, however, it’s the outstanding expenses carried forward bit that I’m unsure about. Can anyone tell me as much as possible about umbrella companies please, as I feel ripped off, especially the fact that I’m not getting holiday pay.
In general , Umbrella companies can be a rip-off I’m afraid. You will spend what seem like hours scanning in receipts for a few quid and emailing them off.
Five minutes of google on the subject will tell you all you need to know.
You can set yourself up as a sole trader,chuck all your receipts in an envolope and just fill in a simple form once a year. If you phone up, a nice person (I kid you not) from the HMRC will talk you through it as you do it.
You can even do it on-line if you are allergic to paperwork!
One word of warning: if you are used to being PAYE, you feel very rich as you bank your gross earnings every week/month. Put between a quarter and one third of it into a separate account and don’t touch it: that way you can use it to pay your tax, which you have to do twice a year(and once is at the end of Jan when things usually seem tight anyway).
Best of luck
I could never figure out the “carried over” amount. I barely had any expenses one week but, surprise surprise, I still had an amount carried forward. I left DH over 3 weeks ago and still haven’t received a P45. I too was never happy with umbrella scheme but took it as a necessary evil to get work. Their “payslips” (available online only) were gibberish to me and I don’t see why your timesheets go to one office but expenses go to another. The scheme has to be a con, otherwise it wouldn’t be done.
If you are a mobile worker not spending more than 40% of the working year at the same depot, then you can claim mileage and submit fuel receipts.
You can claim meal allowances (flat rate) if you are on shift for more than 10 hours.
There’s no need for an umbrella company to make a charge either - they can just include it in your wages as a running total (which you described) because the main thing about ANY kind of “tax offset expense” is that NO MONEY IS PAID TO YOU BY THE EMPLOYER so there’s no excuse for them to drag their feet over it.
Eg.
Earnings gross YTD: £12000
Expenses YTD: £4000
Taxable YTD: £8000 (gross minus expenses)
Tax Code: 808L
Tax Payable for entire year is therefore ZERO
Earnings for Tax Credit Purposes: £8000 as well.
Sure, all this is jolly well worth having - but you’re entitiled to it for FREE without some suit offering to “get it for you for a fee” 
Paying for umbrella fees is like walking into a betting shop on grand national day, and some bloke standing at the door attempts to charge you an admission fee to the shop, and another bod at the “fasttrack GN only counter” offers to “Put your bet on for you sir, who’ve obviously never seen the inside of a betting shop before…” - also for a small fee of course! 
Just say No to all attempts at fiddling you. 
If no holiday pay is being paid, then sorry bud, this firm doesn’t employ you because I believe you are entitled to 20 days PAID stat leave a year when working as a full time professional driver. If you’re not getting it, it’s because the firm don’t employ you at all - YOU are effectively employing THEM to process what amounts to your private sole trader invoices… And if you’re doing THAT, you might as well BE a sole trader and charge a proper hourly rate like £18ph which still undercuts what the agency are charging the client.
[quote=“Winseer” BE a sole trader and charge a proper hourly rate like £18ph which still undercuts what the agency are charging the client. [/quote]
I am moving back to my home town of Sittingbourne for those rates - 
Just spent 3 hours trying to sort out the mess from working for an agency back in august/september 2011 for 6 weeks
(it was just a stopgap between jobs & I was a bit Naive how ‘Thieving’ /sorry, Umbrella companies worked)
The ‘Nice’ Agency man told me “It’s best to go with an Umbrella company & it only costs £5 per week but you earn £1 per hour more than going on their books/PAYE” YEA RIGHT he did’nt want the hassle of sorting my wages ! 
I got a letter from the Tax (Rip Off) Office last week asking me for a P60 from said Umbrella company, which I never recieved. After spending the last 3 hours checking my payslips against my Time sheets only 3 of them were correct the rest were messed around (I think part of the problem was that the agency did’nt get the info to the umbrella company on time or with the correct hours) 
My payslips also had so many mistakes on them, they spelt my name wrong, 
my National Insurance number had a N intead of a W & my tax code was wrong, all of this was pointed out to them 2 weeks after I started work with the Agency. They eventually put my name right & sorted the tax code but still had my NI number wrong. 
If I had to go on an Agency again I think it would be Ltd or Sole Trader as Gas Gas & Winseer have suggested, but make sure you put at least a 3rd away & keep all your reciepts & write down all your hours everyday/not at the end of the week when you can’t remember what you did last Monday.
Also I think you have to buy Nat Ins Stamps 
I’m PAYE now but still record all my hours on a spread sheet for my own piece of mind, people in wages offices can & do make mistakes & it’s always in their favour (funny that ! 
)
Also, remember that alot of Agencies will only take you on as a ‘Limited Company’ and not as a ‘SoleTrader/Self Employed’ driver’.
The Agency has some sort of tax liability if you (as a ‘Sole Trader’) have a problem with your tax. I think they will only entertain you as a ‘Sole Trader/Self Employed’ if you use an umberella company ?
I’ve been advised the best route is to set up a Limited Company ■■ Any advice on this matter would be appreciated.
DougSM69:
Hi everyone.
I work for Driver Hire who use their own umbrella. I can’t seem to get the info I require so I thought I’d ask you. Every time I submit a timesheet, I also submit an expenses form. When I get my pay advice, it says on it, “Outstanding expenses carried forward ££££,” the figure increases every week. How do I claim this money back? I know that expenses a re offset against the amount of tax I pay, however, it’s the outstanding expenses carried forward bit that I’m unsure about. Can anyone tell me as much as possible about umbrella companies please, as I feel ripped off, especially the fact that I’m not getting holiday pay.
The reason your expenses are being carried forward is because you were not earning the required rate to be able to claim expenses.
I was furious when I discovered this, as it took me 10 weeks to find out this fact and I felt deceived.
I wrote a blog about this and I personally believe it to be a national disgrace and total exploitation of temporary workers…Driver Hire did not like this and got the lawyers on my case but I have done nothing wrong. I wanted to warn others, in fact I have even started a petition to the British Government to have these conditions changed, see for yourself and make up your own minds:
http://umbrellascam.blogspot.co.uk/
DH provide us with driver and non driving mates. The DH mates I’ve had with me have all said they can’t claim a penny in expenses, not just on hire to us, but anywhere.
Complete con. The mates start at 4am, get £7.68/hour and don’t get a penny to cover expenses. No wonder DH struggle to get us mates, or in many cases they come once, never to be seen again.
They end up having to pay all these other deductions from their wages, which under normal PAYE would be paid by the actual employer. It just a case of the rich getting richer by screwing the real workers. They don’t like people saying that but it is a fact, the truth is what penetrates armour plating.
The minimum rate they claim you had to be earning each hour to be able to claim expenses was £8.11 at the time. A lady contacted me recently saying she was being paid £8.10 an hour…how convenient, you see, if you cant claim expenses then your taxable income does not go down which means they get to also charge you a higher umbrella fee.
We don’t need companies in this country that exploit it’s workers.
Muckaway:
DH provide us with driver and non driving mates. The DH mates I’ve had with me have all said they can’t claim a penny in expenses, not just on hire to us, but anywhere.
Complete con. The mates start at 4am, get £7.68/hour and don’t get a penny to cover expenses. No wonder DH struggle to get us mates, or in many cases they come once, never to be seen again.
Thats more than stobart rate, and you dont need a licence?
yorkermiles:
They end up having to pay all these other deductions from their wages, which under normal PAYE would be paid by the actual employer. It just a case of the rich getting richer by screwing the real workers. They don’t like people saying that but it is a fact, the truth is what penetrates armour plating.
The minimum rate they claim you had to be earning each hour to be able to claim expenses was £8.11 at the time. A lady contacted me recently saying she was being paid £8.10 an hour…how convenient, you see, if you cant claim expenses then your taxable income does not go down which means they get to also charge you a higher umbrella fee.
We don’t need companies in this country that exploit it’s workers.
Trouble is, so-called “Business Friendly Government” is basically a crook’s charter. "You come up with whizbang ideas to screw money out of those with less than you to start with, and we’ll look the other way and let it happen." 
Mustn’t be seen to tax the rich and reward the underpaid poor eh? 
Talk to a rich person, and their idea of what a “poor” person is happens to be “someone on benefits”. It’s easier to hate someone on benefits than it is to hate a highly qualified/experienced/long-hours-working tradesperson when you are also pretending they are “poor because of their own lack of effort”. Then the upper classes wonder why we put 'em all up against the wall with the rest come revolution day! 
Thank you to all who have begun to sign that petition, it’s a bit of a long shot I do realise but if it goes anywhere towards helping people retain their hard earned wages, then I am all for it.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/64292