Legit I am

[Ardesco]

I don't see what self-assessment has to do with it. As far as I can tell if you have claimed but don't have receipts you will only have problems during an investigation.

You take the value of expenses you have claimed and add that to the amount of money you have been paid and then put that on your self assessment form. You are then told you owe £XXX.xx amount of tax which you pay. You have now not claimed expenses that you never incurred and have paid the correct amount of tax without telling El Gordo that you were trying to scam your expenses.

nice and simple with no comeback and means that you don't have to worry if you have a investigation in the future.

[Lewis]

You take the value of expenses you have claimed and add that to the amount of money you have been paid and then put that on your self assessment form. You are then told you owe £XXX.xx amount of tax which you pay. You have now not claimed expenses that you never incurred and have paid the correct amount of tax without telling El Gordo that you were trying to scam your expenses.

nice and simple with no comeback and means that you don't have to worry if you have a investigation in the future.

Ok I see the point, but that only covers one year though. Giant have been allowing unreceipted expenses for many years.

[Lewis]

you were trying to scam your expenses.

I think that is a little harsh. It is Giant who have mislead contractors into believing they were allowed to claim these daily allowances as a 'dispensation' given by the revenue. I think the majority of people, had they have known the real situation would not have claimed. How many people post here saying "I didn't know, I am worried, what can I do?". They are not scammers. They have been mislead by Giant and are trying to find a way out. I suspect that their worry is probably because the are more honest than most not less!

[Ardesco]

Ignorance of the law is no defence.

You may have been mislead, but the sad and harsh reality is that it is your problem, not the umbrella companies problem. In an investigation it is you who will be accused and found guilty of making fraudulent expense claims, not the umbrella and saying "But I didn't realise I was scamming..." will not change this one little bit.

[Lewis]

Ignorance of the law is no defence.

You may have been mislead, but the sad and harsh reality is that it is your problem, not the umbrella companies problem. In an investigation it is you who will be accused and found guilty of making fraudulent expense claims, not the umbrella and saying "But I didn't realise I was scamming..." will not change this one little bit.

Absolutely. I was only trying to make the point that calling someone a scammer sort of implies they did it knowingly whereas I think a lot of people did it because they thought it was allowed. But yes, ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law, it's now their problem. I just don't see the point of calling them scammers when they are asking for assistance to get out of the situation. Shame companies like Giant can't be sued - not only did they say receipts were not required but their system didn't allow the entry of anything other than the full daily allowance! So it was either the full daily amount or nothing. If you wanted to claim just £2.95 for a sandwich you couldn't! It has since changed of course. I do wonder what prompted Giant to change it and demand receipts, did they lose their dispensation? They say not.