skippy41 wrote:
I think I have now worked it out,
If a person requiring a taxi, PH, and they call the office to book one, and the office calls upon a driver to go and do the run they are now employees, but if they are sole traders and they take the call personally the rule does not apply.
Have I interpreted it correctly or near as damn it
Yep, that's more or less how I interpret it. So, if you are s/e and your school is with XYZ Cabs, and XYZ Cabs gives you the school run to do, you are now seen to be employed by XYZ Cabs and they get lumbered with paying your tax and NI.
If you personally have the school contract with Midshire County council, then you are self-employed. If YOU sub it out to someone else, you have to pay his tax and NI. I think...

[/quote]
How do you interpret the situation regarding an office sending drivers for "normal" work like pick up from ASDA and take home?[/quote]
If the office sends any driver hackney or PH regardless of if that driver owns there vehicle they are now employees, and it doesn't need to be an actual physical office, it could also apply to those that work car to car, I informed quite a few drivers of this new rule today and as usual most buried there heads in the sand[/quote]Correct, it would appear to apply to anyone acting as an intermediary ("the office").
I put the question to my accountant who retired from the Army with a string of letters behind his name proving he's a highly-qualified accountant and he says
"This is the purpose of the proposed changes:
'The purpose of the proposed new rules remains to remove opportunities for the avoidance of tax and Class 1 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) by the use of intermediaries, such as service companies or partnerships, in circumstances where an individual worker would otherwise be an employee of the client or the income would be income from an office held by the worker.'
It is an obvious anti NI and tax avoidance. Such things have been going on since Henry VIII's reign when the Statute of Uses was introduced as a method of ensuring that the King got his fees on inheritances etc. It didn't work either!