Temp Agency Question
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anonymous-user

Original Poster:

81 months

Tuesday 19th January 2010
quotequote all
Have done a search on here but found nothing.

My father in law is a lorry driver and is currently working for an agency as a temp. Recently they contacted him to say that he could increase his take home pay if he transferred to being an employee of a company called JSA who would allow him to claim part of his wages as expenses and therefore not pay any tax on them. Apparently he can claim mileage to and from work (at usual 40p/mile), lunch costs (£7.50 per day) and late working costs (£15 per day). He would have to pay a fee to them but he would still take home significantly more money. Is this all OK? seems strange that if you can do this why everybody doesn't do it, my natural cynical mind suggests that if it's too good to be true then it probably is!

JSA have a website http://www.jsagroup.co.uk/

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

997c2scab

422 posts

208 months

Friday 22nd January 2010
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Correct this is legal... For the moment anyway due to loop holes etc

He will be classed as IR35.

Tell him to ask the agency for an increase on his hourly rate also as they will be saving money on his employees National Insurance at 12.8%

Eric Mc

125,322 posts

292 months

Friday 22nd January 2010
quotequote all
997c2scab said:
Correct this is legal... For the moment anyway due to loop holes etc

He will be classed as IR35.

Tell him to ask the agency for an increase on his hourly rate also as they will be saving money on his employees National Insurance at 12.8%
IR35 doe NOT apply to individuals.

It appears that he would be just a normal PAYE employee with a higher proportion of his income being deemed to be an expense claim rather than a "wage".

This particular tack is HIGHLY dubious as the HMRC rules applicable to expense claims for employees are EXTREMELY restricted. Travel to and from work is normally NOT allowed. The question arises as to where his "place of work" is actually located and that is probably this so called "loop hole" that his employer is trying to exploit.

I reckon that there is actually no loop hole and they are just deliberately misinterpreting the regulations.

Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 22 January 17:29

Gargamel

16,278 posts

288 months

Monday 25th January 2010
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Eric - some of these umbrella firms employ you to them, then contract you to the client. Thereby deriving some tax benefits, but last time I looked travel to a permanent place of work wasn't one of them.

Check with another company - try Giant.

escargot

17,123 posts

244 months

Tuesday 26th January 2010
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We do a bit of work with Liquid Friday, they're highly regarded as far as umbrella companies go.