Little Green Man needs help HGV driver LTD company

Hello everyone, i am new to the forum and i really would like some help with my Limited company, it’s a long story but an interesting one so grab your self a brew and i’ll rewind to 2011

I was a HGV driver working for a large blue chip company , i have always paid my tax, paid my NI and i have done for 20 years, i have never been self employed never mind own a LTD company, it was something i was forced into .

When the recession hit most people like my self Driving HGV's were forced into self employment (or so we were told) This was the birth of so called umbrella groups for HGV driver, companies would not employ you , jobs were very hard to find but if you worked for an agency they would give you more work than you could physically do in a week, but you would have to sign up with an umbrella group or be LTD.

Thousands of Drivers like myself were forced into this situation because agencies did not want to employ anyone and unless we joined the umbrella club we were simply told there was no work for us!!

On paper your take home wage was slightly higher than being on a companies books but when you work out the benefits we lost like uniform, holidays, sick pay, pensions we were really on a downward path while agencies and umbrella groups were raking in the profits by robbing people on minimum wage.

Noticing how umbrella groups made there money off my back didn’t fell right for me so i  was then advised by a co worker that the Limited Company route was the way to go, but the whole idea of doing VAT returns, Payrolls, Expenses sent shivers up my spine, i didn't do very well at school and i just wanted to work hard and put food on the table, I was then told not to worry about all that because there were accountants out there who will do it all for me for a small fee, I was then shown a text from his accountant saying he had earned £600 in a week and his take home pay was about £580 ??

This was a huge pay rise that no HGV driver would refuse so i bit the bullet along with most HGV drivers in the UK today, agencies were rubbing there hands together because we were now huge profit makers for them and the way we all saw it was the extra £1 an hour we got for being LTD was more money in hard times so nobody complained.

The accountant i used told me to do everything for me it would only cost £15 a week out of my wages, i asked if there were any hidden charges and he said no, i asked if it was all above board and he assured me everything was top of the pops, he was a lier, and this was the first mistake we all made, hundreds of us used him, thousands throughout the UK

He signed us all up for VAT on the flat rate VAT scheme and most of us were unaware of this because we didn’t understand it, he then charged the agencies VAT, paid HMRC there share and kept the rest for him so the £15 a week he was taking from us all of a sudden became thousands of pounds a year off each driver and a huge head ache for me because this was in my name and i thought it was wrong so i pulled out after 8 months or so because the money agencies were paying him was in my name, my company name yet paid into his company bank account? (I didn’t have one)

He would then pay what was left into my current account but i now know it's not the proper way to run a limited company and most agencies know this yet they let it happen, and instead of stopping it, each agency did the same thing with there own accountants, each one not letting drivers use the same accountant if they changed jobs, making it awkward to leave a job and walk into another , it was living hell for me because i was living in fear every day that if the agency decided they didn’t want me anymore i wouldn’t be able to work else where using the same accountant ! the stress and worry was more than i could bare infact it made me ill.

After being ripped off for thousands of pounds i decided the only way to do things would be to do it all my self so i got my books back from him, my passwords and everything he set up but i got them too, he covered his arse by putting an Admin fee of £50 a week into my books that made his VAT theft legal and gave me that much of a run around that to this day i never got my money back, this was a recession and i had to put food on the table as well as work 60 hours a week, it caused me a lot of stress and sleepless nights but i finally had all my books and thought i would never get ripped off again.

I then visited accountant number 2, this guy was a legend! he told me flat out that the way he does things is for HMRC to get Minimum and he gets the biggest bite making us all happy, he told me his services would cost me no more than £800 a year plus VAT and told me not to worry about anything, he said to just keep working like i am doing and when my books were due in another 10 months time to just pop in and give him everything and he would sort it!

When that day came he gave me a bill for £1890 plus vat, i was totally shocked so i rang him straight away and went in to see him, he explained to me that accountant number 1 did not do my end of year books and the cheapest he could do everything for was £1100 plus VAT due to the way i was ripped off legally by the first accountant.

I borrowed the money from a  friend to pay him in fear of never working again and i then asked him to tell me straight what the next years books would cost and he said no more than a £1000 because it will be straight forward.

In 2013 i think real time PAYE came into force? i didn’t understand this and still don’t so i asked him how much it would cost for him to take control of it for me and he told me it would cost £120 for the year so at £12 a month i was happy for him to sort this too, that bill turned out to be 6 monthly he lied again and sent letters demanding the money in which i decided to egnore after i paid the first one, enough was enough! 

My books were due in July 2014 and he sent me another bill for £2120 , then another bill for the payroll and when i looked back at how much money i have borrowed from my family and friends just to survive i could not pay it because i had to pay them back.

I owe no money to the banks, i haven’t borrowed a thing, i earn less than £30K a year and in two years i have been ripped off and paid out more than i ever would just being employed as normal working for a company instead of my self.

Situation i am in now makes me worry every night, i got a phone call from the bank in February saying if i did not sort out my books my limited company will be dissolved in 3 months, they told me the letter was dated 28th January 2015 making me out of work by 28th April, i cannot afford to pay the above accountant and my books for that year have now gone missing in the post ? ( i would not pay him so i guess that’s what i get in return)

So in a nut shell i have no books, no accountant, no money to pay but not in debt as yet , for the last year i have been paying back the people i owe money too (not banks)  and i have only just found out that i cannot draw money from my LTD company account as and when i please to pay back debts and go food shopping, i have to admit i have just been using the card as normal, nobody told me i couldn’t!

I have until the end of this month to sort everything i cannot sort, i have since moved home, live on my own, have no debt but two kids to support and a nagging ex MRS.

I will be out of work if i cannot have my own LTD company so i thought about just setting another one up after reading a lot of posts on here.

This time i want to do it right, I have set up another company, totally different name, different address , and if it helps me earn a living i am prepared to even change my name to avoid the stress i have been going threw this last few years.

My personal tax return was due in Jan 2015 and thats not been done ether , i understand that i have to pay £100 fine which i will do and thats due by the end of this month too, My VAT is all up to date but i have to admit i have done the last few returns and i do not know what i am doing.

I need a fresh start, i need to put this nightmare behind me and look forward and at the same time i need a LTD company or i am screwed.

Couple of years from now i am handing my keys in, i can’t be doing with this anymore, i’m thinking of being an accountant  …but until then i need a limited company bank account, my current one is Barclays and they have charged me a fortune this last few years yet are unable to lend me a penny to get me through these times!

I would be glad of the help and advice, i need to keep working, and after everything i have been through i would like this year to work for me, i’d like a holiday to Torquay or something, few days off would be nice, i’m sick of the stress and sick of being ripped of because i work for minimum wage and i can’t understand why people who would rip me off when i am earning so little .

Little Green man

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