are these accurate calculations?

joanne_d_3

jimmo wrote: »

Joanne
You really have to try to compartmentalise the issues you have for your own sake as well as for those that are trying to help you here.
If you are going to an Employment Tribunal perhaps you should share your worries about that with the regulars on the Redundancy or Employment forums. Just as an obvious example, you have mentioned on this Tax forum that you cannot afford legal representation at the Employment Tribunal. That has nothing to do with tax and whilst it is difficult to separate the issues you really need to try.
As I understand it your husband’s former employer has threatened to shop him for tax evasion if he continues to the Employment Tribunal. My guess is that your husband’s former employer is running scared and is trying any dirty trick he can think of to put you off proceeding to the Employment Tribunal. I really believe that you should call the former employer’s bluff but you would probably get better reassurance if you were prepared to share details of what went wrong between your husband and his former employer on the redundancy or employment forums.
Getting back to tax issues it is really important for you to come to terms with the facts.
If I remember it correctly your husband started his taxi business in March working 2 days per week and at that time you only had 1 car which doubled as a family car and a taxi.
Since then you have acquired another car for £1500.
So, is the former taxi now a family runabout?

Hi Jimmo.

Yes you are correct , hubby became self employed at the beginning of March.

He has now managed to get some extra hours with the depot so things are looking up !

We have always had two cars in the family , he had his car and i had mine.

The car i have always had is the one which we are using for the family car . The car HE HAD we have sold and bought A DIFFERENT one which is more suitable as a taxi .

So we have always owned two cars but we just changed one recently and thats the one being used as a taxi .

To your suggestions about the tribunal . i really dont like to post too much about that....the circumstances surrounding it are so bizarre that if his employer were reading on here they would KNOW straight away that the post referred to him!

The last thing i want to do is keep them informed as to what we are planning lol.

For that reason , although it would be a massive weight off my shoulders to talk about what happened , i think i will just leave the tribunal out of this and do as you suggest and concentrated on the tax side of things.

Once the tribunal is over though i will share his story with you all lol , i will bet none of you have ever heard such a story lol.

Joanne

joanne_d_3

Jimmo....Wow !

Thank you ever so much for taking the time to type all of that out , it means a lot to me when people with knowledge as wide as yours take the time to help others , so a massive massive thank you!

From memory , some of the points you made.....

Yes you are correct in thinking that my husband began only woking 2 days per week , but thankfully now the hours are gradually increasing . The depot from which he works is only a small depot on a housing estate and according to the other drivers business is very slow in the first few months of the year .Thankfully as this picks up hubby has been getting more jobs.

So....he has been averaging 25hr weeks now :T

You then mentioned last years tax , you are correct in thinking these will only be for his short period of self employment for that tax year , he began self employment in the beginning of march 2010. During this tax year he was also an emloyee (with the employee whom he is taking to tribunal) so for that tax return when we are asked to complete it we may be best using an accountant , as he was - employed 5th April 2009 until september 2009 , then from September 20009 - March 2010 he was unemployed (but only claiming tax credits benefits) , then on 1st March he completed a "trial" day in the new depot , then on 12th he commenced working there permenantly.

This leads me to the assumption that this return may be too complicated for me lol.

You also mention that i should have kept a record of business miles for that period and used those instead of running costs.....i can now see the benefit of that method Jimmo but unfortuantely a record of the miles were not recorded , only receipts for diesel .


You went on to mention HMRC and how most reports to them are probably malicious. I would say on this point that you are correct ! You say (i think?) that HMRC are aware of this but in MY opinion , i wouldnt blame HMRC if they DID investigate us if the employer IS bad enough to make an allegation.

I would be off the impression that if they did receive a report , they would be obligated to follow it up .

The thing is i KNOW they wont find anything , we havent done anything we shoulnt have . We live in a council house which we bought from them , we have a really low affordable mortgage , our home is a basic family home with nothing extravagent contained in it , we take our children on holiday to scotland every year which we SAVE for lol , last year we couldnt go as we couldnt even afford it ( this kinda proves things....i mean if we HAD of been fiddling ,i.e if my husband HAD been working as an employee AND taxi driving on the side as the ex employer claims then surly we could have at least afforde our USUAL week in scotland?) and last but not least (LOL) we both have seperate bank accounts and between the two accounts i would say we have £300 tops !!!!! lol i would evn allow HMRC to look under my matteress lol. So if thats the lifestyle of someone who's fiddling paying taxes then i just dont know....

The point im making is if its claimed that we are fiddling then i hope HMRC can see that the report is nothing more than a report from a malicious person who is attempting nothing more than to have us scared out of our wits by an investiagtion (which we would be even though we have nothing to hide!).

At this point in time im holding on to the thought that the employers solicitor is merely trying to scare us into withdrawing out ET claim.....but why would we ? We havent done ANYTHING wrong !

IF HMRC do investigate us , my plan is to throw our whole lives open to them from the off / At least by doing this and just allowing them un-restricted access to our entire lives will at least make the enquiry less painful and drawn out for all involved.

Jimmo - i think you also mentioned keeping all receipts for this new tax year and using these as a way to complete our 2010/2011 self assessment , this is what we are doing , we are keeping receipts for the TOTAL running costs and then on self assessment we wil work out the personal use percentage and add it back.

I have learned so much from this site and i really cant thank you enough , ALL of you .

Joanne

ps j