I’ve looked for a list of abbreviations on the forums but couldn’t find one so thought I’d post this.
I’m not new to HGV driving by any means (being doing it for 11 years) but I’ve been recently jobsearching and I keep seeing references to LTD drivers and I’ve no idea what it means: can anyone enlighten me?
Ltd means limited as in ability to hold down a proper job 
Late to Deliver
lazy tramper doormat
Lots of Tax Due
It’s “long trailer drivers”, and refers to those 15 metre trailers that’ve been around a few years now. It’s not a seperate licence, but you do need to do the correct cpc 7 hour module to drive them.
LTD means the driver limits himself to easy work and won’t do any hard work.
Toonsy wins so far.
It means that the company wants you to be self-employed via a Ltd Company. This means that you will/should get a higher rater of hourly pay and along with being able to claim various things against tax means you should be ahead. Before getting over excited, you should factor in that you will be paying your own SSP, your own holiday pay, your own pension and if you stand for a day because of lack of work, then you won’t be getting paid.
“Legal” Tax Dodger.
“Living The Dream” 
No rights .
Correct answer*
What is LTD drivers?
A freelance driver is a driver that is registered self-employed or who trades under their own limited company. They usually drive either HGV’s or Coaches and don’t own any vehicle other than their own car (i.e don’t own a truck etc).
Quick witted answer, LTD driver = Learning, Training, and Developing
We may see an end to the legal fiction where a driver who owns nothing and works for only one employer can claim to be self employed.
A rule change on the tax status of self-employed people working for private sector companies was the biggest new revenue raiser in the budget.
The tax framework, known as IR35, is aimed at stopping tax dodging by disguising employment through so-called personal service companies, which will cost the exchequer £1.3bn a year by 2023-24, according to HM Revenue and Customs figures. In a bid to stem that flow, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, is making private firms with more than 250 employees responsible for checking contractors’ status – and liable for paying tax fines if they get it wrong.
Makes me howl, during the budget speech, Hammond kept on about making the tax system fair and that off payroll employment tax/ni rates are to be leveled out to PAYE tax/ni rates, ie to make it fair. Whether you agree with the enforcement of IR35 or not then why not enforce it on all sizes of companies and not just medium and large ones. How does that make it fair? He didn’t enforce it on small companies because it would cause chaos for all of the one man band (PSC) Ltd companies in all industries.
Wonder if private firms excludes PLC or its just the wording, maybe to exclude gov depts.
Secondly, if say Stobarts pay an agency do they have to check each workers status supplied by the agency, or is the contractor in that case jyst said agency?
If its the agency who need the 250 employees - do many actually have that since all the Ltd drivers are presumably not employees so its only office staff and maybe anyone on PAYE? In that case tell them all they need to go under an umbrella scheme and stop PAYE.
To me there seems to be a lot of loopholes and I’m sure accountants can find a load more.
Santa:
We may see an end to the legal fiction where a driver who owns nothing and works for only one employer can claim to be self employed.
They don’t.
They claim to be employed by a company which they happen to also be a director off and own.
With all the negatives spouted on here I’m amazed anyone does it. Who wouldn’t want to be employed so you can beg for a bit of holiday in 6 months time (you’ll get your holiday pay - just not all the payments which make is a livable wage), sacked with no rights within 2 years and earn less than the blokes doing the same job who pick their own time off and if they are inconvenienced simply call up another agency and are in paid work the next day.
Money ain’t the be all - I value having the freedom to do as I please. I have come to the conclusion that there is a lot of jealousy of agency ltd drivers by those who don’t have the self confidence to do it.
trevHCS:
Wonder if private firms excludes PLC or its just the wording, maybe to exclude gov depts.Secondly, if say Stobarts pay an agency do they have to check each workers status supplied by the agency, or is the contractor in that case jyst said agency?
If its the agency who need the 250 employees - do many actually have that since all the Ltd drivers are presumably not employees so its only office staff and maybe anyone on PAYE? In that case tell them all they need to go under an umbrella scheme and stop PAYE.
To me there seems to be a lot of loopholes and I’m sure accountants can find a load more.
I aren’t really sure how it is going to work. Had a blanket enforcement across all sizes of business been applied then there would have been no way around the rules but by excluding small businesses then that allows an opening for businesses with large numbers of employees to get wiggle room.
IR35 is already applied in the public sector, ie BBC, NHS, Government Departments and so on causing projects to be put on hold as contractors scarpered out of the public sector into the private sector to escape IR35. This causing chaos for the public sector companies involved. By leaving small businesses alone, the government can’t really say they are leveling the tax/ni system as hundreds of thousands of people operating through a Personal Service Company will escape the dreaded IR35.
sammym:
With all the negatives spouted on here I’m amazed anyone does it.
Agency work gives plenty of “benefits” in theory allowing you to pick when you work although in my experience it gets a bit iffy round Jan to March. It suits many and no probs with that and if they get work year round thats good.
Being ltd as a non owner driver is entirely different - that is purely a greedy tax dodge screwing over those who pay their taxes but bet they still want the same services paid by everyone elses taxes.
Personally I think anyone doing this these days since its very well publicised should be prosecuted for tax fraud (along with the agenxy paying them) then the courts can decide if its serious and potentially send people to prison just like VAT fraud etc. Might make many think twice.
As for money isnt the be all, is that the whole point if being ltd vs PAYE.
The government clearly don’t think it’s a tax dodge for small (PSC) companies to continue paying less tax/ni than a comparable PAYE worker!
LTD drivers are PAYE as they are on the payroll of their own company.
This tax year 2018/19 LTD drivers will pay themselves £8,424 in one lump sum in the final month of the tax year (ie. 6th March 2019 to 5th April 2019) so that they can claim the whole year’s NI tax allowance.
The rest of their income is derived from dividends as this attracts less tax. Dividends are paid after the company pays 19% corporation tax on its profits. In this tax year, a LTD driver can pay himself £11,850 tax free allowance (which can include dividends) + £2,000 tax free dividends = £13,850 before being subject to 7.5% tax on dividends. So a LTD driver can pay himself £8,424 through PAYE and £5,426 dividends and not pay any tax except £1,272 corporation tax…so an average tax rate of less than 8.5%.
For the tax year 2020/21 corporation tax is due to go down to 17% making it even better for LTD drivers.