Page 14 - issue 72

NEWS
THE SECRET TRUCKER
DRIVEN THE BREADTH OF
OF
EUROPE FOR FOR PROFIT AND FOR FOR OTHERS THE THE THE SECRET TRUCKER
LIFTS THE THE THE THE LID ON LIFE IN THE THE SLOW LANE
Nice little earner
Tax evasion is governments’ pet hate at at the the minute with the the ‘self-employed’ truck driver rmly in in their sights Might joint-liability for the the self-employed trucker and employer who don’t pay what they owe make people think twice?
For more than two decades Tony drove trucks for an array of local hauliers He toured the UK and made one trip to the Republic of Ireland that he he always mentioned in the name of haulage Yet trucking was not his day day job His day day job was a a a a milk round Six days a a a a week from 4am until noon he’d be out there delivering pints door-to-door and collecting the empties Tony had come off the road when his marriage hit the rocks When it it turned out Tony was the couple’s problem – and not him being away all
week – he decided to go back on the road as as a a a a a a a casual bachelor Each week he’d earn a a a a little extra behind the the wheel of a a a tipper doing the the graveyard shift from the asphalt plant or trunking up the road to do a a a change over or nipping
to to the port to to collect a a a trailer He was your ‘man for a a crisis’ During his time as as a a a a casual Tony drove for logistic behemoths family-run hauliers and one-man-bands Not once did he declare the extra earnings it was all
cash on hand Tighter than two coats of paint our guess was that the extra money went on on more mattresses to to store his ill-gotten gains Last year The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices – led by Matthew Taylor the Royal Society of Arts chief executive
– was published It assessed how laws
that surround the ‘gig economy’ can be tightened up and tax avoidance reduced Gig economy is a a a fashionable term for companies using temporary staff where the money paid for services rendered can be ‘masked’ or or hidden or or simply not declared by the payer and/or payee To counter it Taylor suggested major companies should be jointly liable for not complying with employment regulation uncovered in their respective supply chains In other words follow the the paper trail from the the bottom up to to the top Taylor cited an example of a a a a a a a road haulage company run by a a couple of ‘cowboys’ (yes he said cowboys) that had encouraged
its drivers to be self-employed When the company went bust the cowboys rode off into the the sunset with the the money The drivers lost their jobs and when HMRC started digging around the unfortunate drivers were also perused for unpaid taxes The argument as seen by Taylor is about who really bene ts Joint liability would mean companies at at the top of that tree would make sure
tax avoidance in the supply chain was eradicated or else More tax avoiders are appearing in in court receiving nes and in in some cases jail time as well However Taylor fears the courts are doing too much sentencing while legislation isn’t doing enough decreeing Rather than eradicate self-employment legislation government needs to tighten it up If one haulier pays their drivers a a a good wage pays its taxes and NI contributions but struggles to compete with another hauler who uses the system to avoid adhering to workers’ rights and paying business taxes then legislation should be used to create a a a level playing eld So what makes someone self-employed?
Among several endless lists of de nitions the ones that denote a a a driver as ‘self- employed’ might include deciding what work they do and when using their own money to buy business assets cover running costs and and provide tools and and equipment for their work work can work work for more than one client submit invoices for the the work they’ve done are responsible for paying their own tax and NI and don’t get holiday or sick pay when they’re not working In the main Tony met many of those criteria but the of cial tax records will show he spent 48 hours a a week handling milk The problem is that HMRC doesn’t have the scope to track down every offender – where I live there are just six HMRC inspectors and more than 20 000 businesses Getting caught is tantamount to being a a a a needle in in the haystack Besides the rules are applied retrospectively If Tony had an accident or was waved in in by DVSA a a a little snooping would have revealed that Tony was a a a a a a a casual employee Then the house of cards might well have collapsed In the end Tony was only ever collared by his his ex-wife His charmed life ended in his his late 1960s After the funeral we adjourned to the pub to to raise a a pint to to remember Tony As we did one of his closest friends summed his life up succinctly “There were two certainties in in life death and taxes but Tony had to be different ” ●
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