Honked:
But then I dug into your figures and it scared me.
£51,000 / 19 months = £2,684 per month. Avg of 22 working days per month = £122 per day. Average of 10 hours per day = £12.20 per hour. You say that includes subsistence and fuel so lets say £11.00 per hour.
.
Looks good on paper doesnt it…thats until you break it down. Run your own truck though and then theres some scary figures.Filling 1400 litre tanks is one of them… 
I don’t mind anyone doing their little scams.
What I object to is people ■■■■■■■ up my leg and telling me it’s raining. You can ’ re-invest ’ or claim ’ allowances ’ all you like, but the END goal is to cram as mush cash in your pocket as you can.
Regardless of if it’s your own wagon or somebody else’s…
AndrewG:
nsmith1180:
On more than one occasion I have refused a start time unless the client has agreed to pay more. I have not started at a time I didn’t want to start at for over a year.Dont do that when you go O/D, you’ll find it’ll be quite the opposite…
Very true that.
I’m as much an employee of my customer as my drivers are employees of mine. My customer wants something 200 miles away at 08.00 next day, the answer is never, I’ll be there at 9…
Honked:
Impressive figures, I’m very tempted to pack in my slave labour, trouble free, worry free existence in employed work.But then I dug into your figures and it scared me.
£51,000 / 19 months = £2,684 per month. Avg of 22 working days per month = £122 per day. Average of 10 hours per day = £12.20 per hour. You say that includes subsistence and fuel so lets say £11.00 per hour.You have to pay your own holidays so another quid off to bank.
A tenner an hour is about double what a good beggar will earn in Manchester. He fiddles his tax too and eats crap from the bins. Gotta love social mobility in the UK.
Besides holiday pay, you should factor in sick pay and pension contributions as well.
I was going to do a full breakdown for him, but the reality that he will be earning less than minimum wage could push him back into employment, that’s a failure for an entrepreneurial genius.
Another self employed driver who thinks he is a captain of industury.
From what I can gather 90% of ltd company drivers work for one firm. Usually for some shyster with a bit of tat nailed to the motors and a leased Range Rover.
They will be sold the old if give you 10 paye but il give you 11 as ltd company then the old il put you in touch with my accountant you can claim for this that the other and get a leased pick up truck and claim for it.
What they don’t see is they are subsidising the boss who his saving all the employer liabilities that’s the real saving.
I’m on a few truck related pages for tippers and construction work on Facebook and it comes up quite a lot and it’s always I’m making a fourtune I say when I want to work etc.
However since Christmas when work is always quiet in this game it’s the big mouths coming on asking is there any work about permanent or casual as they are only getting a few days.
I’d have thought with all the money they make a month in Barbados would be how they spend this time of tear
I think most are holidaying bed and breakfast in Rhyl with free tickets to the funfair.
Conor:
How much tax did you pay on that £51k? You’ve claimed by your own admission fuel expenses which you couldn’t claim as an employee and no doubt some of the subsistence allowance wasn’t claimable as an employee either both of which mean you paid less tax than you would on PAYE and therefore have put ‘maximum dough’ in your pocket.Corportation tax is paid on any year end profits, just as it should be in any business. As for the fuel allowences, if you use your car for company purposes you are entitled to be re-imbursed at an approved HMRC rate. Every penny of fuel allowance is logged with start/end postcodes and mileage covered. If I take a longer route, the reason for the diversion is recorded too. Likewise for subsistence. I pay myself subsistence at £25 per night out, which is £1.60 below the HMRC agreed rate for a driver in a vehicle with a sleeper cab. All perfectly legal and proper. Also, unlike a PAYE driver, I have on more than one occaision waived my right to the tax-free allowances to keep the money in the company to achieve another goal
You have an accountant and one of their jobs is to minimise your tax liability so I ask you how is that not doing it to put maximum dough in your pocket?
No, I have an accountant to prepare reports for HMRC and Companies house, to run my payroll and to do all the other mathematical things I am neither confident or competent to do. I tell my accountant what I want to earn, he tells me either how to do it in a compliant way or that I am talking out of my back end and need to revise my expectations.Are you VAT registered? If you are then that is a third example of you doing it to put maximum dough in your pocket. Nothing wrong with doing it but at least be honest about it.
Yes, I am VAT registered. And no its not about putting extra money in my pocket, its about creating a record for my business. You see a company that isn’t screwing the system for everything it can get submits regular reports to HMRC of its turnover, which future creditors can interrogate to see if I am a safe company to lend to.And no, the Freight Transport Association isn’t a professional body, its a trade body. Insitute of Chartered Engineers, Institute of Engineering and Technology, General Medical Council and The Law Society are examples of professional bodies.
OK, so who would the professional body for truck drivers be then? The IAM who signed me up the minute I passed my class 1 without any assessment or confirmation of competence or TNUK, who let idiots post whatever crap comes out of their brains? Or perhaps a union? Maybe to be part of a professional body I have to stand in solidarity with bleeding heart liberal incompetent steering wheel attendants while they refuse to do what is rightfully asked of them because they disagree with the boss but are either too stupid or to lazy to try and improve their own lot/
AndrewG:
Looks good on paper doesnt it…thats until you break it down. Run your own truck though and then theres some scary figures.Filling 1400 litre tanks is one of them…
I agree. I live in fear of my first set of end of year accounts after putting my own vehicle on the road and seeing next to fuel a number which is likely to be well north of £45,000. These are however things that need to be done if you have the same goals as me. As my mother says, ‘tis an is not an ought’.
kr79:
Another self employed driver who thinks he is a captain of industury.
No, a self employed driver who is trying to develop. I have no delusions of grandeur, just a very good apreciation of the challenges I face if I ever want to put my own vehicle on the road and an action plan to overcome them.
From what I can gather 90% of ltd company drivers work for one firm. Usually for some shyster with a bit of tat nailed to the motors and a leased Range Rover.
In financial year 2016-17 I have worked for three companies directly plus three agencies, the only ones with tat on the wagons and posh bangers in the car park were the agencies. The company I am currently booked with is run by a bloke driving a 13 year old Jeep actually because his priorities are Safe wagons - happy staff - him last. Please god don’t tar all operators with the same slightly greasy brush you seem to have encountered.
They will be sold the old if give you 10 paye but il give you 11 as ltd company then the old il put you in touch with my accountant you can claim for this that the other and get a leased pick up truck and claim for it.
I have never been encouraged to go Ltd. I was a while back told the only way a company would employ me was as an umbrella company, so I told them that it was Ltd, PAYE or nothing and we didn’t do business. If anything, I have either received no different treatment as Ltd, (though of course different rates) or discouragement.
What they don’t see is they are subsidising the boss who his saving all the employer liabilities that’s the real saving.
I am well aware that my clients save by using me over a PAYE or Agency driver. Thats what business is about you see. Its also a key point in valid contracts, each party must take an advantage from the agreement, or to use the proper phrase a Consideration. Not having a benefit for each party would invalidate the agreement.
I’m on a few truck related pages for tippers and construction work on Facebook and it comes up quite a lot and it’s always I’m making a fourtune I say when I want to work etc.
However since Christmas when work is always quiet in this game it’s the big mouths coming on asking is there any work about permanent or casual as they are only getting a few days.
I’d have thought with all the money they make a month in Barbados would be how they spend this time of tear.Or a smart person would use this time for training, as I have done.
Seriously guys, is this all TNUK is? A question gets asked, someone answers honestly and the entire forum piles in with shooting that person down as much as they can?
Just because it isn’t right for you doesn’t mean it isn’t right for someone. Just because you can’t see a legitimate way to operate it, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t and isn’t.
I seem to be missing a pair of these…do you know who might have them?
I’ve looked at both sides…
Weighed up the pro’s and cons, evaluated, calculated and re-calculated, projected, mused, read the paper, walked the dog and finally concluded.
As far as this forum is concerned, it really depends on how good your reversing skills are.
Nice to see the Ltd Company doom mongers are back out of the woodwork.
If what the Ltd Company drivers are doing is against the rules and as mentioned tax avoidance then why dont HMRC simply close them down?
This area is not black and white, it is a very deep grey. HMRC introduced IR35 many moons ago and find it practically impossible to enforce.
So if the powers that be cannot enforce it, then that really says a lot.
If anyone is concerned about IR35 compliancy, get in touch with HMRC and ask them to test your status, you will come away more confused than when you rang.
Good Luck
I suspect you’ll find many of the “doom mongers” are or where Ltd Co and speak from experience
bbc.co.uk/news/business-38931211
Just heard this on the radio. Not driving but an industry with much more scope for self employment than driving especially for one firm at all times.
robbo99.:
If what the Ltd Company drivers are doing is against the rules and as mentioned tax avoidance then why dont HMRC simply close them down?
Who knows? But it may well have something to do with the fact that HMRC is staffed with the most colossally incompetent, brain-dead, half-witted idiots imaginable. They are people who are simply unemployable outside the featherbed of the public sector.
robbo99.:
Nice to see the Ltd Company doom mongers are back out of the woodwork.If what the Ltd Company drivers are doing is against the rules and as mentioned tax avoidance then why dont HMRC simply close them down?
This area is not black and white, it is a very deep grey. HMRC introduced IR35 many moons ago and find it practically impossible to enforce.
So if the powers that be cannot enforce it, then that really says a lot.
If anyone is concerned about IR35 compliancy, get in touch with HMRC and ask them to test your status, you will come away more confused than when you rang.
Good Luck
I have put a link up twice before, can’t be bothered at the moment. Having been to RHA conferences and most recently an update on current rulings at a transport solicitors, the requirement to be self-employed as a truck driver, was to have a truck ( and all that goes with that, O license, insurance etc ). It’s that simple.
As to why HMRC don’t pursue it, no idea, maybe not enough time, the whole area is becoming less regulated and more companies are testing where the boundary is,s o they have more to deal with.
I’m not against self-employment, I’m not against agencies, but I do feel that the definitions have been stretched too far.
They seemed to have realy clamped down on the umbrella schemes last couple of years and a few have ended up with a big tax bill on the mat.
Give it time on ltd company’s. When you think what easy prey a self employed person is to take to the cleaners rather than amazon or Facebook that can employ top legal brains and accountants.
I’d rather not take the chance myself
kr79:
Plumber wins workers' rights battle against Pimlico Plumbers - BBC NewsJust heard this on the radio. Not driving but an industry with much more scope for self employment than driving especially for one firm at all times.
Here is a classic example of the grey areas between employed/self employed. It has always been an absolute that self employed receive no holiday pay and very little employment protection, then this ruling comes out
albion:
robbo99.:
Nice to see the Ltd Company doom mongers are back out of the woodwork.If what the Ltd Company drivers are doing is against the rules and as mentioned tax avoidance then why dont HMRC simply close them down?
This area is not black and white, it is a very deep grey. HMRC introduced IR35 many moons ago and find it practically impossible to enforce.
So if the powers that be cannot enforce it, then that really says a lot.
If anyone is concerned about IR35 compliancy, get in touch with HMRC and ask them to test your status, you will come away more confused than when you rang.
Good Luck
I have put a link up twice before, can’t be bothered at the moment. Having been to RHA conferences and most recently an update on current rulings at a transport solicitors, the requirement to be self-employed as a truck driver, was to have a truck ( and all that goes with that, O license, insurance etc ). It’s that simple.
As to why HMRC don’t pursue it, no idea, maybe not enough time, the whole area is becoming less regulated and more companies are testing where the boundary is,s o they have more to deal with.
I’m not against self-employment, I’m not against agencies, but I do feel that the definitions have been stretched too far.
Im sure what you say is true regarding the transport solicitors comments on s/e lorry drivers, but as a contractor im sure that if it were as straight forward as you stated, the funny farm, aka HMRC would be on it like a shot to recover revenues. Lets be honest all they would have to do is go to the hauliers get names of s/e drivers that the firm uses and contact the driver and land him with a great big bill…Im sure HMRC are even capable of doing that
peirre:
I suspect you’ll find many of the “doom mongers” are or where Ltd Co and speak from experience
That may be the case, but I would like to know how many Ltd Co Lorry Drivers have been forced to close down due to IR35, Im guessing very few
Olog Hai:
robbo99.:
If what the Ltd Company drivers are doing is against the rules and as mentioned tax avoidance then why dont HMRC simply close them down?Who knows? But it may well have something to do with the fact that HMRC is staffed with the most colossally incompetent, brain-dead, half-witted idiots imaginable. They are people who are simply unemployable outside the featherbed of the public sector.
Couldn’t have worded it better myself
