Comments on: New stats: Umbrella contractors are getting swindled on pay, rights and pensions and the government has known it for years

By: JackR

JackR — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 16:53:48 +0000

I do not understand the point of holiday pay. As a contractor, I have no annual leave, I do not get paid for holidays. As a result of this, there is no technical limit to the amount of holidays that I can take as the contract does not specify a limit. Yet, my umbrella company still does this silly accounting trick with holiday pay and they have not been able to explain to me why that is, now they say I have to advise them when I take annual leave for compliance reasons. As far as I understand it, I am under no obligation to tell them when I am on holiday vs sick or if I am working for another client. I do my timesheets weekly and for days I am not working I don’t specify I am working simple as that.

By: James Egan

James Egan — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 02:37:59 +0000

the biggest scam for me was not being told, or having the issue hidden of me.having to pay the employer national insurance contribution as well as my own national insurance contribution, alongside agency fees this was denting my pocket to the tune of thousands a month.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:02:39 +0000

In reply to Raj. Simple solution to all of this Get rid of IR35 like Liz Truss was going to do No need for umbrellas or PAYE bureaus or all of these dodgy kickbacks and scams

By: Nick Woodward

Nick Woodward — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 07:46:26 +0000

In reply to Robert Sharp. Robert, you have missed my point. If recruitment agencies offered PAYE payroll services, which all of the temp agencies do by the way, then there would not be Umbrella companies. The cost to process payroll in house is negligible, about $1 per weekly payslip or $5 per month per employee. The cost is the same for an Umbrella company, yet they charge up to $120 per month, that's a huge margin! I would be happy to go through the costs with you if you like, just DM me.

By: Raj

Raj — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 05:48:32 +0000

Nice long winded rebuttal from an HMRC man in a grey suit and comfy shoes… nobody believes you by the way! My umbrella company has broken some of the rules mentioned in the original article! So you know where you can go! Or maybe you’re one of the few ethical umbrella company reps that is in denial that there are a load of cowboys out there?

By: Robert Sharp

Robert Sharp — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:38:21 +0000

I think this article is very lopsided. I agree with the comments of Dave Chaplin and also Crawford Temple, and they are correct that HMRC have had this data for many, many years. The problem however is that HMRC employees do not have the expertise to understand or action the data that they are sitting on. That is why they are constantly asking those of us who run compliant umbrella companies for assistance in stakeholder meetings. They haven’t got a clue what to look for, how most of it works and the mechanics employed by umbrella companies who are exploiting contractors.

We also need to stop commentating this is just an umbrella problem, the very same abuses that contractors are facing using some umbrella companies is just the same on PAYE Bureau payroll as well, I know this because I have audited many, many PAYE Payroll Bureau companies and have found skimming abuses, pension abuses, holiday pay abuses as well as NMW abuses, So to think that by simply moving everyone from umbrella to PAYE payroll will change anything is just categorically wrong, This is a fundamental issue with PAYROLL and it is the whole payroll industry that needs to be regulated and there needs be laws that are specifically made law for the temporary labour market.

The final comments from Nick Woodward are also just factually incorrect, The margins charged by umbrella companies do not result in huge profits at all. Actually when you run a compliant umbrella company the margins are actually very small when all overheads are paid. The huge sums of monies or profits have arisen from the scams, exploitation or manipulation rouge umbrellas have employed which means they are retaining far higher levels of revenue then they should be, which is in turn funnelled to agencies in return for PSL positions and this is the primary problem that needs addressing.

If Government can shut these avenues of exploitation down then it will automatically start addressing the balance of the playing field. Last but not least there is now technology that guarantees umbrella companies are payrolling their workers, compliantly, ethically and morally, 100% of the time, best of all this is always in real-time, so protection for workers is already live and being used as we speak.