Having been put under
pressure from the Editor to produce my
report by the second week in December due to
early printing Xmas schedules, any
enticement to you to maintain our service
levels leading up to Christmas will be
wasted - especially as you will be reading
this in January! I was going to write about
how I believe that doing more credit work
was not only financially more beneficial to
everyone, but that it was also a better way
for drivers to keep records for when they
see their accountant. That leads me to an
article I recently read in London Taxi Times
by Alan Wall of Accountants Simia Wall.
It reminded me of a similar article I wrote some seven or eight
years ago when I was the Society’s
Treasurer, regarding the keeping of concise
records. I said that if you were called upon
to have your yearly returns checked by an
Inland Revenue inspector, unless you could
prove what had been declared was correct, an
inspector on behalf of the Inland Revenue
could say that in their opinion you have
under-declared. Even if the figure was just
for £1,000 – equating to £20 per week - by
the time your previous six years earnings
were also included into the equation,
interest charges added and a fine placed
upon you, an amount approaching £10,000
would not be a ‘pie in the sky’ amount, but
one that can make a substantial difference
to an individual’s financial well-being.
It doesn’t need me to tell you how important it is for a
self-employed person to keep accurate
information about his or her earnings.
Legislation due to hit the statute books in
January 2004 will place a greater importance
on
individuals being able to justify every penny of their income. The new
legislation refers to ‘money
laundering’ and it appears that accountants
and agents will need to appoint a Money
Laundering |
Control Officer within
their company.
The phrase ‘money laundering’ will no longer be solely associated
with the underworld and their movements, it
will be applied to smaller businesses where
there are cash payments. It appears that these
new laws will increase the responsibilities of
accountants to be certain of their clients’
sources of income. Accountants have always had
responsibilities and obligations but the new
law requires, as I understand it, that an
accountant is obliged to report anyone to the
National Criminal Investigation Service if
they have any suspicions about an individual’s
declaration of earnings.
What I find very concerning about this new law is that it forbids an
accountant discussing with their client that
they have reported them. As yet, no minimum
amount has been set that should be reported,
so in theory, if the amount was £50 the NCIS
must still be informed.
If I understand the new law correctly, it will be the decision of
an individual within the NCIS to decide if the
amount reported is too small. If it is, then
they must instigate a prosecution against the
accountant for wasting their time. How
bizarre!
Having recently seen my own accountant, I asked him for his views
on the new laws and he firstly confirmed Alan
Wall’s article. I asked if that meant that
drivers should now be starting to take note of
all their cash work with regard to time of
pick up and journey times. He felt that this
may be going too far, but certainly a driver
should take note of how much is in the bag at
the start of his shift and how much is there
at the end. For any money that is taken out, a
receipt should be produced. A daily sheet
should be
filled in and monthly totals transferred to a yearly sheet. Hand this in
with your bank statements, building society |
savings accounts and all
the receipts, then all should be ok.
A problem could arise when a driver cannot prove an entry on their
bank statement. Even if a family member gives
a gift, if this is a cheque it must declared
as such. He also said it could happen that an
accountant will refuse to complete your
returns because of the lack of information
regarding your earnings. It will then not be
easy to find another accountant who will, but
what is certain is that the first accountant
will have reported you.
The last point the article made was that accountants would
inevitably spend more time completing a
driver’s account and more time will mean extra
cost. I know from talking to many drivers that
their records are kept up to date
exceptionally well and for those of you who do
this, there will not be anything to concern
yourselves with. However, for those of you who
have more of a ‘head in the sand’ approach, be
very careful. If you have not read the article
and can get a copy, it certainly is worth a
read.
Terminal Upgrade
Since we started the upgrade, Allan Evans and
I have received numerous telephone calls about
cash rides and whether we are now holding the
cost of those trips on our system? The answer
to this is no, we do not store this
information. The terminal reads the meter at
the end of a cash journey, but this is so that
a receipt can be issued. When the trip
information is passed from the dispatch system
to the accounting computer, the meter reading
field is not taken.
The next batch of drivers will soon be receiving a notification
letter to contact Roman Way to make an
appointment for their upgrade. Please do this
as soon as possible because the sooner all
cabs are completed, the quicker we can turn on
the new software to improve the signals.
Keith Cain
Driver Operations
Call Centre Manager
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