Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

EL - 54160 - you sound like the gobmeister :-)
CL are just one of a great many companies that insist that their "employees" are self-employed ..... and i agree it's an abuse in all sorts of ways

however, as these self-employed have to register with HMRC as such, it is a "one-horse racing certainty" that the contracts put out by CL (and all others) have been fully vetted and approved both by HMRC and the company's lawyers

though self-employed have to pay their own NIC, the gov't of course loses out by not receiving the employer's contribution .....
also, though as self-employed you do not get dole money, assuming other boxes are ticked you still qualify for other benefits such as housing etc

You will get dole if you cease to be self employed. The reason for no dole is that a genuinely self employed person will be running a business. There will be periods in that business when there are no customers and claims for unemployment benefit between customers would be somewhat odd.

Cynic

From HMRC:

ESM4210 - Particular occupations: lorry drivers - general
Drivers who only provide their labour, driving vehicles owned, maintained, and insured by contractors, are likely to be employees. Drivers who also provide the means of transport, that is the vehicle, are likely to be self-employed even if they work mainly for one principal. The vehicle may be one which they own or lease (see ESM4211).

City Link were obviously using this paragraph to determine the nature of the employment or self employment.

My concern is to do with:

The enforced livery of the vans: ie. City Link livery only.
The enforced usage of the liveried vans: ie. City Link deliveries only.

For me, it was the enforced use of these two stipulations by City Link, which facts were not fully disclosed and were obviously omitted from HMRC questioning, which allowed the firm to get away with using self employed drivers and thereby escape all the 'Employer' responsibilities of employer tax collection.

I also see the benefit to the government of allowing this type of 'employment' to occur:

It helps the unemployment figures.
It encourages people into self employment.

All this is good - until it goes wrong.

Then we find that Income Taxes and National Insurance can't be/haven't been collected.
The rest of us tax payers then have to pick up the tab for it.

In this instance, those at the top of the City Link tree, ie. 'the fat cats', make quite alot of dosh for themselves leaving others to pick up the bill.

This City Link failure is a sorta kinda 'civil crime' rather than a 'criminal crime'. This type of crime is what our society is persistently suffering from, eg. similar to, say what the bankers did to us in 2006/7/8/9.

Here's one of the latest 2014/2015 products to hit the market:

The 'Selfie Stick'

Phil Valentine, a contractor who has worked for City Link “on and off” for six years and runs six vans, dismissed the £43,000 figure. Once a driver paid for fuel, insurance and a weekly charge for a van, earnings would be more like £28,000 a year."

Surely if you use the above case Phil Valentine should be the employer as he owns the vans and other drivers are potentially working for him by driving them. Valentines contract would be to City Link. City Link would therefore not employ the other drivers..

It's not the only outfit to pull the plug around the New Year is it, get the Christmas revenue in to get some of the losses back... and then fold it.

Thinking about how this might have been...

Let's start with:

The drivers need liveried vans to be able to deliver for City Link.

Valentine merely assists the drivers to acquire the liveried vans.
This seems to be a prime qualifier for them to function in a self employed capacity and work for anyone in that capacity.

But providing a service for who? Valentine or City Link?

All Valentine has to do, say in return for his van aquisition help to these 5 drivers, is create a Contract for Services between himself and them, saying 'who' and 'how' has to do 'what' for 'whom'.. All he then has to do is have wording inside these contracts specifying that the vans can only be used for City Link deliveries.

He is then running 5 self employed City Link drivers and he himself is also self employed. All 6 vans only deliver for City Link. All 6 drivers are self employed. Valentine also makes a bit from his 5 drivers for financing their vans. Simples.

The important bit is the HMRC 'own van' paragraph. It is the bit that is being abused.

Hays is right Cynic if you become unemployed when self employed you are eligible to claim
Jobseekers Allowance (dole to you) there is a means test and you have to have been resident here for so many years.

But its a right farce having to take all your books down to the Job Centre. I had to do the assessments when I was there and what a pig of a job it was especially with some of these self employed bringing in boxes and boxes of invoices.

If I can find it ill post up what you have to prove.

Here we are....

Jobseeker's Allowance

To get Jobseeker’s Allowance you must be habitually resident and pass a means test. If you are self-employed, you may be entitled to Jobseeker's Allowance depending on your earnings from your business. You do not need to close your business or stop working as self-employed for you to get Jobseeker’s Allowance. You will get Jobseeker’s Allowance if your income is below a certain level.

Income from self-employment and the means test
The earnings from your business will be assessed in the means test for Jobseeker’s Allowance. The assessment must reflect the income you may reasonably be expected to get from your business over the next 12 months. Income for the last 12 months will be taken as a guide but allowing for any factors which it is known will vary. You should be prepared to discuss these factors when you are assessed for Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Earnings are assessed as gross income less work related expenses over 12 months. Your expected annual earnings from self-employment is divided by 52 to find your weekly means from self-employment. Any ‘drawings’ you take from the business is not an allowable expense. If your ‘drawings’ from the business are greater than the level of income calculated, the ‘drawings’ are assessed as cash income. There is no exhaustive list of all business expenses allowed because expenses vary with the nature and extent of the self-employment. However the following are the main allowable expenses in most cases:

Materials (supplies costs)
Motor running costs (portion applicable to business)
Depreciation of machinery or equipment
Insurance relating to the business
Telephone (portion applicable to business)
Lighting and heating (for business and not domestic use)
Advertising
Bank charges
Stationery
Van leasing
Any other costs associated with running the business (household running costs are not allowed as deductions against business profit)
To prove the level of income from your business you must give your receipts and payments (documentation showing money coming in and out of your business) or audited accounts to the person dealing with your application in your Intreo centre or social welfare local office.

When you apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance
Usually, you will be asked for your receipts and payments or audited accounts for the current and previous year. For example, if you apply for Jobseeker's Allowance in April 2014 you will be asked for your receipts and payments from January to April 2014 and for 2013. However, in certain cases you may be required to show audited accounts for the last two or more years. Find out more about signing on for a jobseeker’s payment.

HNY sticks ..... not too much brown ale with the pork pie i hope :-)

i'll believe you sticks
i know how difficult it can be to get benefits of any kind - except the illegals who seem to have a short line of communication far too often

btw, we're still waiting for HMRC to respond re my o/s VAT claim


EL - there are all sorts of variations on how this chap might be operating those 5/6 vans

How do "Big Issue" sellers qualify for anything?


Heres the breakdown for that magical £43kpa (gross) earnings with city-link

Very slick, no wonder people fell for it



http://www.city-link.co.uk/ownerdrivers/earning

Truth and the deficit: my response to @ToryTreasury

Fraser Nelson
2 January 2015 12:28





Is it honest for the Conservative poster to say that the ‘deficit has been halved’? I argued earlier that it’s misleading, and that it’s a shame that the Tories use this language because it casts doubt on the other clear, arresting and true claims they are able to make (jobs, etc).

The word ‘deficit’ means the amount, in cash, that a government or a company has to borrow to meet its spending needs. The gap between what is spent, and what is raised. Using clear language is very important here: polls show just a third of the public realise that national debt is rising – they’ve been misled for years by language that suggests to the non-expert that debt is falling. (Including the PM saying ‘we’re paying down debt’). The journalist’s job is to challenge, rather than repeat, such language.

Now, the Tories justify their claim by saying the word ‘deficit’ has another meaning: the ratio of deficit/GDP. I don’t dispute that the ratio is widely accepted and more useful to economists, but a deficit/GDP ratio is different to ‘the deficit’ which is measured in pounds. If you want to talk about the ratio, you need to so say so – otherwise the sentence is a porkie.



more:http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/fraser-nelson/2015/01/truth-and-the-deficit-my-response-to-torytreasury/

Well well well........at last a HONEST TORY

Style and beliefs[edit]
Nelson is an economic libertarian and a supporter of the Conservative Party.
(Wikipedia)

There's plenty out there gf!

Could have fooled me Max.

I like the tory advert.

It sums up their past 4 years.

A pathway to nowhere with Captain Marvel at wheel.

That with the deceit over the deficit. (Don't mention debt.)

=-=-=-=-

Also, when considering the City Link fiasco and what it reveals :

The below won't go away!




=====


Sorry GF, but we cross posted and I couldn't resist temptation!

I doubt that the stats above are correct. What is the source apart from some lefty's imagination?

None of your stats are accurate, how can they be, your a blue blood sleazy Tory.

A wonderful time was had by all at the Utter Arse of the Year awards

It’s been an amazing year for complete idiocy – perhaps the best ever


Rod Liddle 3 January 2015



Tony Blair, Alex Salmond and Stephen Fry: Winners of the Utter Arse of the Year awards Photo: Getty



A glittering cast list, delicious food and spectacular entertainment — I just wish you could have been there. But tickets were at a premium for The Spectator’s prestigious Utter Arse of the Year awards ceremony held, as ever, in the council chamber at Tower Hamlets. The meal, prepared by the exciting left-wing lesbian cook Jack Monroe, consisted of her famous kale pesto pasta on a bed of shredded back copies of the Guardian. As we munched away, a troop of locally sourced Bangladeshi mime artists enacted the setting up of an east London caliphate and — to the delight of the audience — silently decapitated several infidels sitting near the stage. As the black flag of the Islamic State was raised above our heads, the compère for the evening, Jon Snow, from Channel 4 News, took to the rostrum and the real business began. It has been a fabulous year for arses, he told us, perhaps the best year on record. Arses everywhere you look, he chuckled — and at that moment, through fiendishly clever technology, a giant hologram of the revolutionary comedian Russell Brand appeared beside him, transmitted live from his £76,000 per year flat in nearby Hoxton. The Russell hologram entertained the audience with a stream of indecipherable, pretentious, sub-adolescent balls before (again, praise to the technical team) disappearing in a puff of smoke up his own backside. How we all cheered!

That was an excellent foretaste of the proceedings. Snow then welcomed the leader of the Labour party, Ed Miliband, on to the stage to do his famously hilarious impersonation of someone trying desperately to appear normal while undertaking a range of simple everyday tasks — such as standing still, eating a sandwich, breathing etc. On the screen behind his head was displayed a strange photomontage of nine or ten distressed people, some wearing restraints, others gibbering maniacally, two of them in a permanent vegetative state. These troubled souls, it transpired, were the remaining British citizens who think Ed would make a competent prime minister.


More good stuff here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9403602/a-wonderful-time-was-had-by-all-at-the-utter-arse-of-the-year-awards/