Great British Recovery?

It certainly confirms my suspicions that HMRC are floundering around and are not coping with the new legislation and with RTI ( Real Time Information). Every week, when I run the payroll, I submit to HMRC and copy the email confirmation from them that they have received it. Every month I get an email from them telling me that unless I start submitting information by RTI I will start being fined . The problem then is that it is absolutely impossible to speak to someone on the 'phone, and so it goes on and on......

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/05/23/hmrc-really-do-not-want-to-collect-corporation-tax/
GillT, more pearls of wisdom about HMRC. How do they get away with it?
Dare you try it? I know I would have been caught. They still chase me now for tax I do not owe.

Good morning durhamjen that gentleman talks a lot of sense! Most people dont object to paying tax, it is the inequality whereby those who can afford to employ tax advisers can pay considerably less than they should. I also agree with the comments about non domicile status. you either live here and pay taxes for the benefit of doing so, things such as NHS, roads, police, etc., or you dont. Many other countries manage this very well. I think it is deeply immoral that people like Phiilip Green ( Arcadia) should be able to have the bulk of his income paid to his wife who lives overseas ( cant remember where, but somewhere with advantageous tax system). I have said this before many times on this forum, but how can a company who owns The Ritz Hotel which is very obviously providing services in the UK, and employing people in the UK, can pay no Corporation Tax? The party that addresses iniquities such as this will get my vote. Thanks for the link, I shall have a further read at what he has written, and I apologise for my misinterpretation of the previous article

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/05/22/what-should-a-tax-pledge-by-the-2015-mps-say/
Here's an interesting idea from him today. Do you agree with him?

The thing is, GillT, it isn't just an article. If you read anything about Richard Murphy, he has been on government committees to try to get the government to get tax from all companies that owe it.
He is really on your side.

gillybob when the new RTI came in I had to change from using the free HMRC provided payroll software as I had too many employees, and so went to Sage. Not only did the initial payroll cost £260 ( discounted purchase through my accountant), I also have to pay an annual fee of £200+. Not only that, as my Windows operating system was a few years old ( but working perfectly) I had to upgrade that at a cost of £280, then had to buy a new laptop to run it. The had to pay someone to show me how to set it up. So, all in all, the RTi cost me close to £1500, where is the fairness in that? Yes, it is tax deductible, but still has to be paid for and wasn't my choice. The holiday pay as described by Silverfish is illegal unless it is yet another case of one set of laws for the SME and one set for the multinationals I have posted on here already about being hounded for my Corporation Tax, despite making three stage payments in two weeks which totalled over three quarters of the amount due. These kind of articles really aren't very helpful as they do not reflect reality for most employers!

silverfish I sympathise with you hope your work situation improves soon and I admire you for wanting to work and not relying on benefits.

JessM If the Polish workers are not happy with their working conditions they can go back home to Poland.

I totally agree GillT57 if only......

We were hounded to death for our corporation tax which was chicken feed compared with what the big boys are getting away with. It is truly unfair. Like you we pay everything above board. We only work business to business therefore no cash changes hands. RTI reporting for payroll, VAT etc. I think I (and many others like me) should be paid a wage as a tax collector !

What you are describing is illegal Silverfish Holiday pay is accumulated on an average of hours worked, not hours contracted.

Very interesting durhamjen but in my experience not true! Perhaps it is because I am above board, have registered for RTI ( Real Time Information) reporting for my payroll, pay my VAT and submit all the necessary returns through my accountant. I dont have a problem at all with paying what is due, just think that if more companies, especially huge international ones, also paid what is due, it would be more fair. And Silverfish glad you have stopped bashing employers, we are not all bad you know, but still think you have been misled about someone being given £90 spending money, maybe this is what is left after all her bills are paid?

Here's an interesting link, if I am allowed, for those of you who are employers. Don't pay your corporation tax, and you will not be chased up!
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/05/21/is-corporation-tax-now-an-honesty-box-tax-paid-only-by-the-willing-and-unenforced-on-the-rest/

Also in reply to the above about holiday pay, a certain huge employer in the retail industry who refer to their staff as colleagues, pay holiday pay according to contracted hours. I was told this by a checkout operator only the other day, she said how unfair it was to work so many hours but not get full holiday pay.

In reply to Gillt57, the woman im referring to is on state benefit and has a compulsive buying habit, it is classed as a mental illness, although she is as down to earth as anyone I know, she just spends every day, she got into debt and a social organisation stepped in to help her avoid bankruptcy and they help her to budget, she accepts this and does try not to spend as much. She just happened to mention that she gets £90 a month ontop of her state benefit to fund her spending habit and she does try to stick to this. Im not telling lies, shes a lovely girl but I must admit I would love £90 to spend each month.

I agree that if you are self employed its hard too, I tried it last year and lost lots of money but it just seems that employers don't care, maybe the smaller ones do, those who know their staff but the huge employers like I work for and I would love to name the multimillion company I work for, do not care, we are just numbers. Years ago I worked in a factory and there were no zero hours, but some lasses worked part time, evening shift and that was enough to keep up with child care etc. The man would work during the day and the woman(usually) evening shift and they had 20 hours. this was enough to give a reasonable wage for less hours and no-one complained but nowadays I suppose they would work for zero hours. Until you work like this you don't know how hard it can be.

One of my DDs is on a zero hours contract so gets no holiday pay or sick pay, although her hours are fairly regular and she gets a good hourly rate. There is no security, however.
The other DD owns a small business (farm) with SIL and, after costs and seasonal staff wages, superannuation, tax etc, would barely have had enough money to pay their mortgage this year, let alone food, etc. Luckily, they work their socks off and very long hours for some extra income. Yet again not a lot of security.

You do like to take rather polarised standpoints, don't you, silverfish ?

Also meant to add that I think the term "selfish greedy employers" is awful silverfish. You didn't even have the decency to add the word "some" !

We are not all selfish and greedy Silverfish in fact I would say quite the opposite. I hate the them /us attitude that some people have against employers when most of us small business owners are no better (or worse) off than the people they employ.

silverfish a lot of your claims are wrong I am afraid. As gillybob has said above ( beat me to it!) holiday pay is calculated on an average of actual hours worked. My staff work variable hours and when they take holiday, it is paid, per HMRC rules, based on average of the previous 12 weeks. You are letting your obvious and understandable frustration stand in the way of fact, and I do no believe that a very nice woman known to you receives £90 from the state to fund her furniture and decoration compulsion, or did I read that wrong?

I have avoided this conversation so far but would like to point out (as a small business owner) you cannot pay holiday pay based on a 10-12 hour contract if the employee actually works 20,30,40 hours. Holiday pay has to be calculated on actual hours worked (averaged out) the contracted hours have nothing at all to do with it.

I wonder how much is the drive to keep prices down and how much to keep the shareholders happy. Either way the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

There is always the other way selfish greedy employers get 'blood out of a stone'. They give workers part time hours say 9 or 10 hours contract but they get something like 60 hours a week and if the workers refuse they find they are put under pressure to do them. I know many workers such as certain supermarket colleagues, care workers fast food workers etc who are subject to this. They are exhausted and stressed, some of them like the extra money but most are just wanting to work normal hours. There is no work balance. I was talking to a colleague the other day and she was working 5 12 and 13 hour shifts in a row and does heavy lifting and filling shelves. She is a young married girl and hardly ever sees her husband. Another couple at the same shop do long opposite shifts and meet up outside with their child to hand over to the other one who is going home. they are rarely home together. What kind of home life is this. These long hours mean that the shop only pays holiday pay on the basic contracted hours and sick pay too. Greedly B......s

Even worse than zero hours is insidious growth of "self employed" . Some of you will have noted that the recent "improved employment figures" included a lot of people classed as newly self employed. I'm sure some of them are enthusiastic young and not so young entrepreneurs. But some of them are not.
example 1 - Has 2 degrees, 25, working in a museum "we have a freeze on new appointments. we'd like you to work on the project for which we have grant funding. but we're not going to offer you a temporary contract. You'll have to be self employed."
example 2 - young unemployed man offered job in this area but "will have to be self employed" accepted it despite being warned that the would be responsible for paying own tax bill at end of year, would have to pay own NI, would have any entitlement to benefits compromised if job ended, have no employment rights.
Unethical behaviour by employers both private and public sector.

I would like to say (very quietly) that 35 years ago I worked for Norwich Union (now Aviva) as a part time clerical assistant. The part time bit refered to the fact I only worked when it was convenient to me - ie term times (not a lot in the way of child care then), and with the advantage that if an offspring was sick I wasn't penalised for not going in at a moments notice. No sick pay but some holiday pay after so many weeks (can't remember exactly).

Later I did the same at BT, only that was called temping, and it fitted in with my life and commitments. I also cleaned a teacher's house a couple of days a week and stuffed envelopes and knitted Aran sweaters for a local shop. Eventually the Offspring too had paper rounds and Saturday jobs at B&Q and Sainsburys. I suppose all these could now be classed as Zero Hours. They worked at the time for us in our circumstances, suiting both sides. Yes, my husband had a 'proper' job, but the money my jobs earned was very much needed.

Yes, Zero Hours can work, but as I see it the problem is that Zero Hours are being used too routinely for jobs which should really have permanent contracts, and are too one sided in favour of employers taking advantage of people like care assistants who should really have permanent jobs.

Silverfish

You have obsessed with my posts that have pointed out zero hour contracts do work for some people, for varying reasons and I appreciate your last post and take it with the spirit it was hopefully intended.

I urge you to read my posts again. Take my post of May 7th 10.52. I said 'It is however correct to say this has become a problem in more and more cases and it is right for them to be looked at seriously'. I made further reference to companies using zero hour contracts to avoid their responsibilities to it's staff and paying taxes and entitlements associated with employment law.

I am very sorry that we have had these undignified spats but I would never have used the word bollocks had you not used it initially in your post of May 7th 20.48.

I have never had the intention to make light of your work experience. I totally accept that there are times when we find life is, to put it bluntly, a bloody hard slog and exhausting.

I have been there myself. If you read a thread from a while ago you would have noted I posted that when my daughter was born we were so hard up I sold some of our wedding presents at Leicester Market and did jumble sales to keep a stall going for 8 years until I took a job as a receptionist and got back into the work place. We sold 5 gold rings to buy me a coat when I was pregnant and the jeweller gave us £29. I went straight across the road to C&A and bought a coat. The next week I stood in front of the jewellers and one of my rings was on sale for more than they gave me, I wept.

So please can we try and stop for a moment and reflect on how our emotions have got the better hand of us and try to accept we are neither of us deliberately out to upset one another.

Have a look on Folksy. Not all the things on sale are glossy. Looking "handmade" can be an advantage.

thank you Elegran and rose, for not being so judgemental. I am quite crafty but I don't think good enough for selling to others. I will just have to try to find regular work, im not scared of hard work even cleaning loos, ive done it all.