Taxi Driver Online

At the end of all this, after the largesse of government, in handouts to the self employed, what is the price that will have to be paid? Is this the end of self employment as we have known it? Probably. One certainty is that the levels of national insurance and taxation will have to be equalised with contributions made by the rest of the population. Where I was making (perfectly legally) NI class two contributions of around £10 a month, my wife was paying employee contributions of £90 a month. To end up with a state pension £50 a week lower than mine. Taxation is another area where there has been obvious inequality. But the real elephant in the room has surely to be self employment status. 5 million “ self employed “ people in this country? The chancellor of the exchequer will have them in his sights to be sure. The private hire industry is a joke, and has been for years, with employers of drivers claiming they don’t employ drivers at all, even though they rent vehicles and data heads to drivers who work exclusively for them. There is a day of reckoning ahead, and that day is coming sooner than some might think. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Oh yes! Trouble is, it’s the light of on oncoming train.
Don’t run away this will only affect the Uber’s. It’s on its way to get you all, as I see it. Unless you think differently.

Most so called operators have been no better than uber, they have practised the same business model as them but shouted foul when they came on the scene. It was the same operators pursuing changes in operating laws that allowed the ubers to come on the scene. SELF destruction springs to mind.

Should this mess be sorted within three months, or at least the arse end of it sorted, then I'm not sure it will be horrendously bad financially.

The 2008-10 financial mess was maybe on par with what a three month wipe out could lead to, and in time we all recovered from that, despite austerity.

Bang on.


I'm not so sure. Suspect the main restrictions will be lifted by the summer, but not so sure how long the effects on the economy will last. Could be years.

Of course, it depends on the location. Here we're very dependent on the students and university, and they're effectively shut down until September at the earliest. And overseas tourists and golfers won't be here in the summer either.

But mabye more domestic tourists once the hotels and guest houses open again, and people want to get out and about, but who knows?

As for the trade, suspect a few drivers won't be back, especially those near retirement, or semi-retired with pensions, or part-timers, blah, blah.

And I couldn't believe how quickly the ranks cleared here when it all kicked off. I'm suspecting a few drivers disappeared back 'home' overseas while they still could, so some of them could well never be back, but again, who knows?

On the other hand, with all the job losses elsewhere in the economy, there could be a queue of new drivers waiting to start once things settle down.

So I think some things will change, and the trade will be different, particularly if there's some movement on the self-employment thing.

But those predicting some kind of wider societal change are, I suspect, wide of the mark

When this is all over,everyone will be on the bones of their a*** for the foreseeable future,there will be very little money spare for the use of the likes of us,the economy as we knew it is going to struggle for a long time.

I think a lot will depend on how businesses deal with their employees now. If the majority get furloughed and get 80% of their wages paid by the government and then some of them get their wages made up to 100% by their company then they will be OK. We also have the people who are working through this either by going to work in places such as supermarkets who will clearly be getting full pay and many are getting overtime that they didn't think they would get, and the ones that can work from home and still get paid. Pensioners have a small advantage here as well, their pensions have not been affected by this, in fact they have just had their annual increases. People who are on minimum wage have just had an increase, People who were already on benefits have not had them cut.
There are some people who will not get treated how they should by their employers and I can give you an example of one. My grandson works for Ryanair and they are trying to share the work out between some of the employees that work in the offices. So they have reduced the number of hours that people work and obviously that means that their pay has reduced. But the company could have some of the staff working full time and some of the staff furloughed and they would be better off. The main losers, in my opinion will be the ones whose company don't survive or have greedy bosses and the self employed who have been under declaring their income for years.
Don't forget most small businesses will not be paying business rates this year and many will qualify for at least a £10,000 grant as well. Unfortunately for my business, as it stands we don't qualify for the £10,000 grant because our office is in a business park and we don't get assessed for business rates separately and we pay our rates through the park owners. This is the same for most businesses that work from business parks and markets or office blocks although the Government are looking into this.

Do not forget which a lot seem to,all this financial assistance has to be paid for in the future,it possibly will come as a big shock to the majority that taxes,N.I. other charges levied against the working population are going to rise dramatically.
This leaves less money to be spent on the likes of us.
We can start to claim the payments for our employees from 20th of April and they should take between 4-6 days to be paid and if the County Council continue to pay our contracts we will be fine and not have to defer any bills.
The Government schemes have been brought in to help people through this, not to hinder them. I am reasonably confident that things wont be a bad as it could be for the majority.

Of course, it depends on the location. Here we're very dependent on the students and university, and they're effectively shut down until September at the earliest. And overseas tourists and golfers won't be here in the summer either.

The main losers, in my opinion will be the ones whose company don't survive or have greedy bosses and the self employed who have been under declaring their income for years.