HMRC has created mass confusion over an allowance paid to lorry drivers when they stay away in their cab overnight, says the Road Haulage Association.
Since 1991, drivers could be paid the RHA/HMRC overnight allowance free of tax and national insurance contributions when sleeping in their lorry cabs overnight, in a system that minimised red tape and was well understood throughout the industry.
The rate is currently £26.20. From April 2017, HMRC has insisted on an elaborate and ill-defined process for checking receipts, completely ignoring advice from the RHA that it would not work and ignoring its suggestions for alternatives.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, its implementation has been shambolic with HMRC giving wildly varying, and contradictory advice as to what is needed, and taken months to respond to letters from companies seeking to adhere to HMRC requirements.
Cost and bureaucracy has been heaped on the industry for no good reason.
so what is the definitive please? and how do drivers produce receipts for nighting out when they may well be parked in laybys or industrial area’s?
Just tell me how many of these HMRC people would lie in a dirty lay by in a cab for £26.20 a night and feed themselves as well ???????????? Not many i am sure. no wonder there is a shortage of new drivers. And the rip off of this so called driver CPC This government should be ashamed of themselves for robbing the driver, even Robin hood was a gentleman…
Night out allowances should be scrapped and replaced with a fixed hourly rate, paid to the driver, to stay with his truck during a daily rest period; aftersales, the driver still has responsibility for the vehicle, its’ load and the intergrity of fixtures and fittings , and the fuel it carries. Care workers have won the right to be paid through the night whilst on duty in their care of the vulnerable, even during a sleepover.
For to long now, professional drivers have been treated as third class employees. They are expected to sleep in unacceptable conditions. Just because a truck may have a bunk, does not meet the driver overnight needs are catered for. Also any driver who is on duty for 14-15 hours should automatically receive an allowance to reflect his or her commitment to their duty as a driver. Basically, this can be interpreted as being given night out allowances for 15 hours duty no matter where they take their daily rest.