Weekly Poll - Will the new NMW rules weed out unscrupulous umbrellas? (29/07/10)

[UKFF Mod]

It has now been confirmed that from 1st January next year, the payment of travel expenses to a temporary workplace will no longer count as pay for National Minimum Wage purposes. This clarifies what has been a particularly grey area of tax law, and one that some of the more unscrupulous umbrella companies have been using to their advantage in recent years.

The new government highlighted the continued non-compliance of employment businesses, including umbrella companies, within their NMW response document. But will the proposed amendments really weed out bad practice in the umbrella marketplace?

Feel free to join the debate below...

[bez]

If an umbrella company *was* unscrupulous, then wouldn't they just find another way of making money? At most this NMW change would be small fry anyway, the real money must be in some of the shady offshore operations.

[BlueSpider]

I think that's the whole point of being a clever accountant! You prepare as best you can for new legislation and digest the possible scenarios. If it does come in, you figure out the best way of side stepping it and change your business accordingly

[Beefy198]

Your accountant might sidestep it, but the people lumbered with the tax bill aren't so lucky