Taxi Driver Online

I forgot they seem to have a Solicitor on call in the office

Stu

(just like Andys place )

seems the marrs who own dundee private hire arent as well off as some may think
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2003 ... 6134t0.asp

Well the Halifax bank of Scotland are helping out eh?
no mention of taxis there!

Wharfie

They seem to have their fingers in a few pies, so the taxis are probably not worth mentioning given the scale of the losses.

Even if they were losing £50 per week per car, or making £50 profit per week per car then that would only amount to £180k or so per annum (assuming they have 70 cars), which is not hugely material in the context of losses of £15 million (or whatever he figure was!).

Dusty

maybe dundee private hire arent earning enough to register for vat so they wouldnt have to submit accounts , i think.they may have 70 plates but they dont have 70 cars, i heard some talk that the cab officer gave them some grief over plates jumping from one cab to another reminds me of one of our operators not long ago he just got issued a private hire plate then two months later got offered a hired plate,he took the hired plate and submitted the same vehicle for the taxi test, he kept hold of the private hire plate just in case,it was a sensible move as six months later the hackney liscence owner turned up at his door with the old (my wife says i have to take back my plate and start driving)routine ,a quick leverage of the hack and some tape for the private hire and the plate was replaced and all that was required was a trip to the insurance company and some name changing on the doors ,no need to involve those silly cab tests here....im impressed by the news item on dundee ive never seen such detailed coverage sombodys done their homework, however the item about hired plates saying that if the council done there job the operators would merely run their cars themselves is
wrong i know quite a few op,s who hire out plates and none of them would be remotly interested in running a taxi for two main reasons
1 the cost most are over60 and the reason they gave up the plate was cost
2 the taxman what about all those unaccounted years?
good luck with the site

Now I know you boys do it slightly different up there, but down here the name on the vehicle has to be the same as on the HC vehicle register.

The Bournemouth Ombudsman confirmed that, and cost Bournemouth Council £17,000 for getting it wrong.

So my point is that if you owned the vehicle that the HC plate was attached to, then down here you would have been viewed as the plate holder as well.

I've never really gotten to grips with that Bournemouth case, it seems to say that if the drivers collude in wrongdoing then they get to keep the spoils.

It probably couldn't happen in Dundee though, cos plates can't be transferred??

Dusty

Since it seems to be registered as a limited company then they have a duty to prepare accounts irrespective of whether they are registered for VAT. In any case, the VAT turnover is only £64k or so an annum, there are probably London cabbies who should be registered for VAT, so I suspect that Dundee Private Hire should be!!

In fact they did prepare publicly available accounts for their first year, a friend in Scotland sent me a copy, but that was before the company had actually started trading.

The Companies House website says that they are exempt from filing accounts as they are too small to have to. Quite how they manage this I don't know, I was told that when they started they owned all the cars and paid the drivers a wage. So they would be turning over millions a year, so I can't see how they could be exempt.

But didn't someone say on the old site that they were now renting cars to drivers - if so then they might scrape below the exemption limit, since the cars' takings wouldn't be part of the company's turnover. Do you know what sort of arrangement they have with the drivers, Mr Scot??

By the way, I can't find the accounts now, but I seem to recall that the Mar brothers held 50% of the shares each directly, so since they did not own them through the company in the Courier article, then the figures wouldn't be part of those accounts.

Nice to see that your council has such tight control over use of plates and the like, Mr Scot

Dusty

its the same in dundee the name on the plate must match but nobody checks i dont think the cab unit has ever heard of the search function on his computer if he did he would find a few hacks and private hired plates running on the same vehicle if you dont believe me im willing to name one individual (biggest pain in dundee who is probably reading this ) to any webmaster for confirmation

I cannot find the bournmoth case on the ombusman webb site can you tell us more?

Wharfie

dusty your right all the drivers are now self employed which means as you know they have to make their own wage we have many in our office as do all the rest of the offices ,the figures the drivers are giving us have to be seen to be believed fifteen pound for a full shift daytime is what i heard recently whether this is true i do not know but if you are unemployed the social security will force you into a six month contract with them which was okay 12 month ago but not so now,if deregulation hits dundee it will be curtains for dundee private hire as they are 100 percent reliant on drivers and as any cabbie know when the towns opened the first to bail are the drivers (unless there on contract) a lot of there drivers are putting on their own kia,s for some reason we have just got one who bailled out last week,paying for these vehicles must be a struggle no matter which office you work from(all are private hire) but i wish them the best at least they didnt go down the hired plate road..

I can't remember the exact details, but I think the essense was that a woman bought a plate (or two!) but didn't use them with her own vehicles, but hired them to drivers, who used their own motors (just like Dundee I think, except that the plates in Dundee aren't bought, because they can't be transferred, maybe Mr Scot can confirm this).

Anyway, this breached the rules, and I think it was ruled that the drivers could keep the plates, thus the woman had lost plates worth £16k or so.

So she complained to the ombudsman that they council hadn't kept her fully informed of the rules, so they were to blame for the loss of the plates. The ombudsman ruled in her favour, so the council had to compensate her for the loss of the plates.

Seems daft to me

I think that's the gist, but I feel that Andy will be able to add a bit more or correct me on the details

He'll be in bed by now though!!

Dusty

Dusty, go and get him up this is important!

Wharfie

Well I would, but he's at least a hundred miles away!

Dusty