“you can not employ a driver on a self employed basis if he/she only works for you as inland rev say there is no reason why can not be paye. “
Luckily it’s not the IR who decide, it’s the courts, and they think differently. There is case law relating to the transport industry which allows companies to ’employ’ self-employed drivers to drive the company’s vehicles – as long as the contract’s properly worded.
There’s also no specific law against paying a driver a percentage or a mileage rate. I think the reason this is seen as a problem is that if you’re running vehicles over 3500kg and you receive attention from the Traffic Commissioners following an accident or drivers’ hours offences they they’re likely to rule that a bonus scheme, or mileage based payments is a contributing factor to the problem and penalise the company more than they would normally.
Posted under Employment
Posted by Alec at 10:01 am, March 10, 2008
There’s also the National Minimum Wage to consider – it would be covered by the rules on piecework.
It’s neither – the actual wording is “the offender’s employer, and any other person to whose orders the offender was subject,”
The important word is ‘orders’ – if we engage an outside supplier to carry out a delivery for us then they’re not subject to my orders. A subcontractor that acts as an integral part of our fleet may be – particularly if we were to draw up their delivery schedule.