Dieseldoforme:
Truckulent:
A lot of drivers that go S/E haven’t a clue what they’re doing and
that’s one of the main reasons they can’t make it pay.
Your mate that is no longer self employed clearly didn’t suit self
employment and/or didn’t run the business well. For a start I
charge a fair bit more than the PAYE drivers get - if your mate
was charging just £1 more (where did you get that figure from??)
I’m not surprised he couldn’t make it pay. Secondly, you can claim
far more if you’re running a business than just travel/food and
holiday pay is also covered - if you charge appropriate rates
when you’re working.
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You seem to have jumped onto a bandwagon that just doesn’t exist.
I am ONLY talking about Drivers who choose to go Self Employed
with an Agency. I have never mentioned umbrellas, limited companies
or whatever other tax fiddles are doing the rounds.
ALL Agencies seem to pay £1 per hour extra to Self Employed Drivers.
I have never seen any other figure.
My mate that you mentioned switched from PAYE to S/E after being
talked into it by the Agency that he was with. So were many others.
They were with * * * * but I won’t mention their name. At first they
did not have to produce many food receipts and no one checked the
mileage that they were sticking down.
Suddenly that changed. Mr Tax Man came knocking and the cost was
three grand because “They could not substantiate their claims.”
They did not challenge the HMRC findings so they were very lucky to
escape being fined for fraud.
As I have said before, the extra £1 an hour is widespread and it hardly
even covers the lost holiday pay. There is also the ficticious 45ppm
that is really worth 9 pence and, at the and of the day, a PAYE Agency
Driver can claim exactly the same benefit.
At the top of your comment you said,
“A lot of drivers that go S/E haven’t a clue what they’re doing”
Then you should educate them.
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You’ve never seen any other figure but £1 more?? Are you surprised? Are you saying what agencies put in adverts are always facts and utterly believable? Do you think the agencies will advertise that they may well pay a fair bit more than that?? You have to negotiate. Some do, some don’t. You work for the ones that do. Many will pay a lot more than just a pound, especially for a decent, reliable driver at this time of year. Plus very often, the O/T rate will be similarly increased.
Equally, you can’t be fussy whether you’re working for an agency or direct. If you’re S/E, you’re S/E. You can’t say ‘self employment doesn’t work’, then say, ‘well it doesn’t if you only work for agencies.’ If you go S/E and then only work for an agency, you aren’t running the business properly, and you are likely to come unstuck. Limiting yourself in this way is not the best recipe for success. The point is you are running a business or company, not ‘working for agencies.’
With reference to your mate, you just admitted he (and by the sound of it the agency as well) didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Hence the issue with the tax man. If you ■■■■ up, they’ll cane you but that is the fault of the individual, not an inherent issue with self employment. If you make claims for expenses that seem unreasonable and you can’t prove it, they will come after you. That is a simple fact of running any business. Ask any accountant. If they didn’t challenge the findings they obviously had no records, so what did he (they) expect?
With reference to your final comment, why should I■■? The vast majority react as you have done in any case - with disbelief and by spouting about travelling expenses/food expenses etc., which are a tiny part of self employment. Look at this thread. Several drivers have said how they prefer S/E and seem pretty happy with it…
If you don’t understand how it can work, that’s fine, and you are definitely better off staying employed/PAYE in that case. There is no need however, to berate those that can and do make it work. 
