Umbrellas and subsistence

[Ardesco]

Umbrella's need to realise not everyone joining is single and can absorb discrepancies in promised income compared to that received. People do have budgets and failure by an umbrella to be responsible in being clear affects this.

Churs

The sad reality is that the majority of Umbrella's don't care. They get your money in, take a slice and hand the rest out to you. The less they talk to you the better and once you are on thier books they have got what they want so they aren't going to bother trying to make you feel better.

Chalk it up to experiance, either go LTD or use one of the very few umbrellas reccomended here.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

With regard to the issue of online calculators - it is impossible for an umbrella company to give a 100% accurate estimate of your earnings in this way. The reason is that an umbrella company pays via PAYE. Income tax is calculated cummulatively and tax free pay is determined by your tax code. Not everyone has the same tax code and not everyone will have necessarily worked every week/month of the current tax year therefore an accurate determination of tax is impossible. However, any online calculator should use the standard code for that financial year which is currently 522L - if this is not your assigned tax code your net pay will automatically be different from the figure quoted by the calculator.

With regard to expenses - if the online calculator does not ask you to enter your expenses then you will know that the umbrella company has made an assumption. Obviously any assumption made is unlikely to be a true reflection of the expenses that you will be claiming and therefore the calculation returned will be wrong.

HTH

[Austin Wong]

Well for my situation my umbrella at the intial point of contact said I did not need receipts to claim for the subsistence and could claim 11 pounds a day. Which is 55 pounds a month.

I had to send in my travel receipts though. 27.40pounds per week

I got a figure of 657 take home per week as calculated by my umbrella.

I asked if that was after taking into account all my expenses.

They said yes and so I thought we won't have much spare money but were gonna get by ok, as my wife (looking after children) won't be working and we were going to be based in London.

Anyhow, hopefully you can follow what I write.

I found out after I joined in all the information on my portal, which was not mentioned up from or anywhere on the umbrella's website, that though I did not need to send in receipts for subsistence I need to hold on to them for record. I thought from the original converstion that it was just a nominal claim for working in London and starting early. An entitlement for PAYE employees. I cannt claim this as I cannot afford to buy lunches anyhow.

So, next issue. You can only claim a % of expenses. which you get back. As for travel we thought we would not need to cost it into the budget as the take home pay already allowed for this.

On top of this I am still not sure if the claim for the ticket will be for the full cost of 7 days or only for a proportion for the days I worked.

I have been a bit erratic with my work hours so far but this will smooth out as of next week so I should be getting the 657 they promised less things I cannot claim and extra unexpected cost.

From my new knowledge the best scenario of final take home pay is

Original take home pay - 22% of subsistence (cannot calim now) - cost of travel (unexpected)

657 - 12.1 - 27.40 = 617.50

This is 40 pounds a week less, which is an equivalent of about 170 pounds a month.

Does not sound like a huge amount but considering we cannot afford to eat out at all or have a coffee or a small treat while out for a walk with the kids, it is significant to me.

And frankly the plan to live here would have worked, if only we got what we expected. But now we break even.

I feel that if you get all the facts up front from service providers no one needs to be unpleasantly surprised. In my case we wanted a lifestyle change where my wife would not need to work. We can still do this but cannot have any icing on the cake.

I would have opted for the structure of being self employed which would have gotten me a bit more and put us in the right ball park for income.

I chose my umbrella because of good marketing I guess. No hassles with tax man on LTD or self employed. I just wanted to work and get paid and enjoy the London experience.

So in a nutshell, ask lots more questions.

Ask at the welcome stage before you sign up:

1)Do you need to keep receipts for subsistence.
2)How much of the receipts you can claim back, you can only claim what you spend is what I understand. If you spend less than 11 you cannot claim against 11per day.
3)Check how much of a hassle is it to get out of your contract if you want out of your umbrella.

Hopefully there will be some dumb people like me a tad smarted now from reading my experience.

Umbrella's need to realise not everyone joining is single and can absorb discrepancies in promised income compared to that received. People do have budgets and failure by an umbrella to be responsible in being clear affects this.

Churs

[Epiphone]

Parasol and PCG QU are the only two umbrellas I would reccomend, but I have never used an umbrella so that is not really qualified advice.

Parasol allow unreceipted expenses for meals too. they don't ram it down your throat but they definatly include this in any income projection.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Thanks Lisa, in that case Giant, 360 group etc should al be shot as they allow subsistence up to about £9 a day for normal working day without receipts and do not advise their people to keep hold of them, many of them survive on if the tax man comes knocking I'll pay it back, if not I'm quids in. Bit unfair that people like that will and do get away with it whereas I'd rather be legit. I do find keeping receipts a pain and would prefer the dispensation to be able to keep hold of receipts for myself and not have to send them ine everytime

Can you pm some details for contractor umbrella as I want to leave Orange. Do you have nline portals etc?

Hi Damo,

I have pm'd you and you can also contact me on [email protected]

[TheFaQQer]

beleive

[Cooperinliverp00l]

I have just left Parasol to set up own ltd. With them they said you could claim (don't quote me) £5 a day if working 7 hours and up to £15 a day if working more than 10 hours including travelling time.

I had a 4 hour commute ever day so was easily eligable to claim the £15 a day but never did. I beleive in the Parasol Contract it states that you are liable for any investigation that they get into your expenses from HMRC and although it doesn't ask to submit receipts you should keep them.

I only used to submit claims for when i stayed over once a week otherwise i just paid for it out of my own pocket.

[Orangutan]

there are lots of reasons why Giant should be shot !

[Damo1176]

Hi Damo

You are entitled to claim £5 per night for incidental expenses for every night that you work away from home (this is increased to £10 if you are working overseas). This amount can be claimed without the production of receipts. You cannot claim any other amount as a subsistence payment unless you are on the road all day in which case it is considered reasonable to claim for meals. If you go to the same place of work each day and you do not stay away from home you cannot claim anything for 'subsistence'. Anything you do claim for that is permitted by the IR will need to be suported by receipts.

HTH

Thanks Lisa, in that case Giant, 360 group etc should al be shot as they allow subsistence up to about £9 a day for normal working day without receipts and do not advise their people to keep hold of them, many of them survive on if the tax man comes knocking I'll pay it back, if not I'm quids in. Bit unfair that people like that will and do get away with it whereas I'd rather be legit. I do find keeping receipts a pain and would prefer the dispensation to be able to keep hold of receipts for myself and not have to send them ine everytime

Can you pm some details for contractor umbrella as I want to leave Orange. Do you have nline portals etc?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Hi Damo

You are entitled to claim £5 per night for incidental expenses for every night that you work away from home (this is increased to £10 if you are working overseas). This amount can be claimed without the production of receipts. You cannot claim any other amount as a subsistence payment unless you are on the road all day in which case it is considered reasonable to claim for meals. If you go to the same place of work each day and you do not stay away from home you cannot claim anything for 'subsistence'. Anything you do claim for that is permitted by the IR will need to be suported by receipts.

HTH

[malvolio]

Thud, thud, thud...

Done to death over the last three months, so get searching, but just to summarise:

It is explained in great detail on the HMRC website. Finding it on there is a major challenge though.

You can't claim subsistence unless you're staying overnight.

Umbrellas don't need receipts, but you do.

You can only claim for money you have spent in connection with your work, and no more than you have spent.

Umbrellas that talk about routine expenses and / or dispensations are to be avoided on principle, it's sales talk with no legal basis.

Parasol and PCG QU are the only two umbrellas I would reccomend, but I have never used an umbrella so that is not really qualified advice.

[Damo1176]

HI Folks

I am still ina mass state of confusion when it comes to umrbrella companies and allowable expenses. Some people tell me they claim between 5-10 pounds a day for subsistence and have no receipts to back this up. Saying that their umbrella company does not need receipts. Others say they don't claim because they cannot keep receipts etc and IR could claim it back.

Can please someone tell me the legal standpoint on it.

Its hard to find a decent umbrella because all seem to have different dispensations etc and Orange genie have really pi**ed me off so I am looking for a new one that does nto charge like Giant do....£28 a month!