It wasn’t a tax dodge!

Don’t know the guy or know how hard he worked, but if he was following the rules then they wouldn’t have had a case against him.

It wasn’t a tax dodge!

But it was an employment law dodge?

It wasn’t a tax dodge!

If it wasn’t a tax dodge, then why the hefty tax demands?

Genuine question.

Are you aware of the rules in France? They are ludicrously complex and ever changing.

One of the previous fines was for the ceiling height in a staff bedroom. It was in apex of the building so had about 12ft height in the middle and 3 1/2′ where the bed heads were… Guess which part the inspector measured?

There was also the case of the bar owner who’s regular customers would take their empty glasses upto the bar, when they were finished. He was fined €7k and jailed overnight for undeclared labour.
You can’t fight that kind of attitude.

I also worked alongside a French man in Liecester for a few months with Autistic children. He served in the French army for a good few years and is qualified to the hilt but its impossible for him to return and work there without completely re-qualifying from scratch.

timbud – Member

It wasn’t a tax dodge!

Explain it then. The article says that Trail Addiction were claiming their guides were on temporary secondment from their UK operation. What UK operaion? How were those guides employed by TrailAddiction for the other nine months of the year?

Well I managed all the bookings and race entries

timbud – Member
Well I managed all the bookings and race entries

And that was your full-time job for the year?

What about all the other guides?

Interesting that folk look for the “dodgy” explanation when things go bad for companies. Sometimes companies cease trading because of events outside their control, or sometimes, they grow too quickly, or don’t have the right people, or don’t have enough cash to keep trading and so on and on.

It’s very rarely because they set out to scam everyone and run off with armfuls of filthy lucre…

Exactly nickc… thats sadly the British “daily mail” mentality at the moment.

People assume Ali was dodgy because he drove a Porsche and put his Yeti on the top. (Someone on this thread even criticised him for putting it in the back – where the engine is. Really!)
He just made some mistakes and has been massively and unfairly penalised for it… the company should have and could have operated this year and still paid off the fines (over time)

I don’t know him, didnt know he had a Porsche, and don’t really have any vested interest one way or the other. I’m just going on what I read in the article, which says he claimed all his guides were on secondment from a non-existent UK operation. I’s not a case of looking for a dodgy explanation, the explanation is right there in the article.

I don’t know him, didnt know he had a Porsche, and don’t really have any vested interest one way or the other. I’m just going on what I read in the article, which says he claimed all his guides were on secondment from a non-existent UK operation. I’s not a case of looking for a dodgy explanation, the explanation is right there in the article.

Likewise.

I think it has to be admitted that on the surface the “secondment” looks questionable added to a tax demand paints the picture of something not totally above board.

Nothing Daily Mail about that!

I think it has to be admitted that on the surface the “secondment” looks questionable

are you a EU employment law specialist? or is that just a guess though? Unless you’ve direct insight into the advice given to this company specifically about it’s arrangements, it’s just idle speculation, isn’t it?

The French bureaucracy does seem to be set up to punish small businesses, It really is something that the country needs to deal with, but I don’t see that trail addiction has been singled out for a witch hunt, they have had the same rules applied to them as everyone else.

Like I said earlier, we were advised in 2010 that we could not claim to be on secondment from the UK operation any more. The EU regulators made it quite clear that it was for temporary assignments of permanent employees.

nickc – Member

are you a EU employment law specialist? or is that just a guess though? Unless you’ve direct insight into the advice given to this company specifically about it’s arrangements, it’s just idle speculation, isn’t it?

You don’t eed to be an employment law specialist to find it suspeicious that someone could be on temporary secondment to France from a full time job in the UK that doesn’t exist.

There was also the case of the bar owner who’s regular customers would take their empty glasses upto the bar, when they were finished. He was fined €7k and jailed overnight for undeclared labour.
You can’t fight that kind of attitude.

Link or details of bar so I can check or it didn’t happen, timbud. These things always make the local press. A recent one locally.

My guess would be that the work inspector noted that the same person was taking lots of glasses back to the bar most days and clearly wasn’t a client, but fraudsters usually have some ridiculous justification for the judge. We saw the work inspectors several times, each time they dropped by they were given the “registre du personel”, the corresponding “contrats du travail” if they asked for them, and the most recent “fiches de paie”. They then went around and checked everyone on the premises. We also let them know who was working off the premises and where they could be found, though they didn’t follow that up AFAIK.

There’s a simple way to employ people in most countries including France. You write them an employment contract and declare them to the local authorities. If you employ people any other way then it has to fit within the guidelines issued by the EU. Any doubt and they must be employed locally. What I bet the boss of TrailAddiction didn’t do was walk into URSSAF and the inspection de travail and explain what he intended to do before he did it. He made his own erroneous interpretation to try and save money so he could pocket more cash and pay less – and got caught.

The real losers in this: the creditors of the bankrupt business, and the employees who didn’t benefit from from pension and unemployment contributions to the French system which would have meant that they could have lived through the off season if they had contributed enough through the Summer. They also lost out on compulsory redundancy payments. The secondment system is generally used to under pay on worse conditions which is why the inspection de travail do their jobs and ensure employees are treated fairly.

I did all those things, Employees declared locally, working conditions and salary based on the “convention collective”, redundancy payments based on time served. No problme

Anyone asked the TrailAddiction boss how much he paid himself and how much profit he paid himself in dividends before he went bankrupt?

Edukator (and others) my view is this was clearly “revenge” for fighting the guide qualifications issue (and winning) in court.

French National Insurance is something 100% on the wages the guides are paid.

My post on the STW story. The French have a way of protecting their national interest irrespective of EU law.

No surprise at all. Just as I posted on the original thread I share Trail Addiction’s theory. I have a French wife and over past 20 years have spent a lot of time there including dealing with local authorities.

Most UK tour operators used to employ all of their seasonal staff through the UK, I don’t know if they have been forced to change that arrangement.

You can employ people “through” whatever jurisdiction you like. This does not stop local employment, tax and national insurance rules operating in the place they actually work. Or to put it another way, the fact that the contracts were governed by UK law doesn’t affect those things.

You don’t eed to be an employment law specialist to find it suspeicious that someone could be on temporary secondment to France from a full time job in the UK that doesn’t exist

+1.

Nail on the head IMHO..

Just like “revenge” for Brexit eh, Jamba. It’s not revenge it’s looking after the interests of employees working for an unscrupulous employer who doesn’t respect the laws of the EU or the country he is operating in.

The “Brexit revenge” you talk about is applying the conditions the UK proposed itself in the case a member state wished to leave the union. The UK signed its own propositions and is now claiming that the application of those conditions constitutes revenge.

Look. Bravo for running a business in France for 10 years but just because trailAddiction went into administration does not mean that there was wilful misdemeanour. You’ve read 1 or 2 threads/articles and are not in possession of all the info/facts, but you’re more than happy to throw around accusations of tax dodging and law breaking. How does that work?

I worked for trailAddicition for a good few years and can tell you that isn’t the case. I can also tell you that its not my place to tell you how or what I know…. Only that its not really any of your business. I’ve said as much as I’m able and unfortunately that hasn’t satisfied your need for gossip and to rejoice in the failures of other.

There are few people here that have actually met Ali other than just in passing and even fewer that have worked with him. Working with anyone who has a passion is damn hard and if you can’t deal with that then its your own loss. I had a great (and often bloody stressful) few years and have lost a job that won’t be easily replaced… and wasn’t as poorly paid as some here would have you believe.

I remember now why I rarely visit this forum. Enjoy it, I’m off for a ride.

You’ve read 1 or 2 threads/articles and are not in possession of all the info/facts, but you’re more than happy to throw around accusations of tax dodging and law breaking.

You’re right. Perhaps you could share more of the facts?

But the evidence does suggest something was amiss other than a vendetta. You’re loyalty is admirable but I wonder if it blinds you a little?

Have a good ride.

timbud – Member

Short term secondment is not illegal in Europe… Thats one of the main purposes of the EU (to allow free, easy movement of labour)

Nobody suggested it was. It’s just that the guides aren’t really on a short term secondment, are they?

I can also tell you that its not my place to tell you how or what I know…. Only that its not really any of your business

I know more than you but I’m not going to say – quality playground argument. You’ve already declared your interest and bias. NickC is right of course we’re all speculating, but we’re speculating based on massive fines levied against TA for breaching regulations that have put them out of business, and they seem to be the only guiding company that has been punished to this extent (when all the others have been in the same situation fighting French ‘protectionism’ for 15 years).

I don’t think people have an axe to grind against the owner, and I don’t think he’s some evil greedy slimebag, but it does look like TA alone have tried to game the system and have come a cropper.

What I’ve taken from the thread is that the original STW article is very sympathetic to TA and paints them as a victim, when the truth is probably a little more nuanced than plucky British company versus evil foreign authorities.

You don’t eed to be an employment law specialist to find it suspeicious that someone could be on temporary secondment to France from a full time job in the UK that doesn’t exist.

If the person (a guide, say) is employed by a UK registered company and paid there for tax purposes and works for what? 3 months (I’ve no idea how long a biking holiday season is TBH) in another EU country, then no, It wouldn’t necessarily set off my internal scam alert buzzer…It might very well be what TA were advised to do for all we know, for HMRC purposes or P&L purposes or just ease of regulation…I dunno, could be anything really.

But I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t “I know, let’s scam the French Govt out of a 6 figure tax sum, while sticking our heads above the parapet and going through years of arguing with the French judiciary regarding qualifications”

probably…

There were a lot of happy customers and staff on the Trans Savoie last year, I didn’t notice anybody being oppressed.

Incidentally here’s an advert for one of those short-term secondments

http://singletrackworld.com/2011/04/trail-guiding-job-going-at-trailaddiction/

nickc – Member

If the person (a guide, say) is employed by a UK registered company and paid there for tax purposes and works for what? 3 months (I’ve no idea how long a biking holiday season is TBH) in another EU country, then no, It wouldn’t necessarily set off my internal scam alert buzzer…It might very well be what TA were advised to do for all we know, for HMRC purposes or P&L purposes or just ease of regulation…I dunno, could be anything really.

But I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t “I know, let’s scam the French Govt out of a 6 figure tax sum, while sticking our heads above the parapet and going through years of arguing with the French judiciary regarding qualifications”

maybe…

I wouldn’t be putting money on it, and yes, there might be plausible expanations for it – but secondment means “this person works full time for me in the Uk but I’m bringing him/her to France temproarily for the summer”

Which, if there’s full time work for them with TrailAddiction’s UK operation, is fine. If there isn’t full time work in the Uk fo rthe, then it sound very sketchy.

The article also refers to TA accounting for too much of their income as being from the UK – what(if aything) do they do in the UK to employ all these full time staff and generate income? Timbuk talked about workign on booking, etc – he didn’t say whether or not that was a full time job for him, even if it was, I don’t think you can employ all your guides in that way. I know folks who have worked for the, and they certainly weren’t employed there full time.

Shandy – Member

There were a lot of happy customers and staff on the Trans Savoie last year, I didn’t notice anybody being oppressed.

Don’t think anyone’s suggesting anything bad about how TA treat their staff or customers. Have only ever heard praise for them and what they do on that front.

you’re more than happy to throw around accusations of tax dodging and law breaking. How does that work?

It’s all in the STW article, have you read it? You haven’t read my post because I’ve concentrated on the avoidance of social security charges rather than tax evasion. There’s also an article in the Telegraph from August 2014, there are the French judicial information sites, and companies house. Have a good read of the bottom of the PDF for 07/10/2016:

So how much were the guides paid? I’ve employed a fully qualified French MTB/BMX/route guide for accompanying school groups and our MTB club uses him for “rad” trips. Half a day with some school kids is of the order of 200e (un prix d’ami), good value for money given the level of responsibility.

What is clear is that your boss was in a head to head with the French authorities that jurisprudence suggested he would lose (he has) but made no financial provisions for the payment of the inevitable social security charges that would be levied.

The article also refers to TA accounting for too much of their income as being from the UK –

I would hazard a guess that most of their custom is from the UK riders, ergo so is their business income.

But the accommodation was French, nickc, and given the prices asked the biggest cost/revenue centre was the accomodation provided in France and the guiding provided in France. The money was made by the French part of the operation.

nickc – Member

I would hazard a guess that most of their custom is from the UK riders, ergo so is their business income.

That’s not really what that part is about, honourablegeorge is just summarising- if you look back to the article it actually says

“However, a parallel investigation found that the company had allocated too little turnover to its French operation”

So yes most of their guests are from the UK but that’s French turnover.

willing to bet most of the costs are in Euros, agreed…But their income was probably largely Sterling, so it’s not true to say that France was where the revenue comes from. (as most of their custom was probably UK riders paying in Sterling in the UK from UK banks)

That the operation was in France is besides the point. (for accounting purposes)

Eidt: If TA was a shop, buying and selling to folk in euros, ordering stock and so on, then yes, cost and revenue are French. But, TA aren’t a shop, I know of only one bike holiday firm that asks for local currency, everyone else you pay in Sterling. That makes a difference (especially if you have a UK bank acct for ease of transaction for your (largely) UK based customers…

There really IS no word for Entrepreneur in French sadly.

LOL!!

I know of only one bike holiday firm that asks for local currency, everyone else you pay in Sterling.

Really! Bike Village, White Room and Bike Verbier are all priced in Euros.

nickc – Member

That the operation was in France is besides the point. (for accounting purposes)

But maybe not for tax purposes – Logically, I’d agre with you on that, but if from a French point of view the service they’re paying for is being provided entirely in France, they may see it differently.

But even if that argumnet is winnable, I don’t think the secodment one is.

Whether payment is in pounds or euros is of no relevance in working out where the income arises anyway, it’s just whether the customer or operator is taking forex risk.

honourablegeorge, I dunno, you may be right, we’re all just second guessing really aren’t we?

At the end of the day folk have lost their livelihoods, and folk have lost a holiday, neither an outcome anyone would have wanted.