Back tax claims hit operators
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OPERATORS are being faced with tax demands covering subsistence payments to drivers over the past six years — and at least one large operator is said to have a bill running into five figures.
The purge on payments is thought to have started after an astute taxman spotted stories in the national press which referred to drivers going on Continental trips with up to £1,000 in expenses with them. And now overnight expenses paid to drivers working in Britain are under the spotlight.
The Inland Revenue met with the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Trans port Association yesterday to discuss the whole question of subsistence allowances and tax.
Taxmen have been carrying out routine audits on selected companies on a nationwide basis and it was during these that the question of untaxed allowances came to light.
Overnight subsistence payments were recently increased generally during the last round of pay talks from £3.50 to £4.50.
It is thought that the rise in expenses, plus the increases in wages over the past few year have caught the taxman's ey Now hauliers all over tl country are being approach( by the tax authoritie Rumours are flying that or large haulier has a bill fr £28,000 in back tax.
RHA secretaries nationwic report approaches to the members. Mr Bob Ward, We: Midlands secretary, said tIL members were coming to th Association with this kind ( problem.
" These are fantastic claims. he said. " Each section of th Inland Revenue seems to hac a different interpretation of th situation—and it's a growin problem that will affect ver many hauliers," said Mr War( In the Southern area, M Albert Simpson also confirme, that members had been in touc with him over the question c tax and subsistence allcm ances : "Some of our member have been approached and i was raised at our last meet ing," he said.
A spokesman for the Inlani Revenue told CM that all sub sistence allowances are tax able. "They are taxable if yor get them from an employer be cause you work for tha employer," he said.
"A driver should put his sub sistence on his tax form—i may well be that in a particula. area the inspector has come tc an arrangement with a particu lar employer—but this is no necessarily so," he warned.
The taxmen are concernec that a driver who works hh quota of hours and then leave his truck can then get holm instead of spending the nighl in a hostel or hotel.
"All expenses must be incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the course of employment," said the taxman.
Responsibility for the payments of the tax is not clear; the driver must enter it on his tax return, but the operator must pay the tax under the Pay As You Earn scheme—but it is the operators who are getting the bills.