Has now been debated
A million people connected to the railway who in his eyes mustn't work and just spend everyday riding up and down the country for free on a jolly... What a Clown
Always annoys me when people say it's free. Bit like people saying the NHS is free, but that's for another discussion.A million people connected to the railway who in his eyes mustn't work and just spend everyday riding up and down the country for free on a jolly... What a Clown
Just looked him up, say no more!
You paid £900 tax? How much did you save? Must have been a hell of a lot!
It's based on how much the employer pays RSTL for the facility rather than how much value is obtained from it. If @S101 is a higher rate taxpayer (not as high a threshold as it used to be!) then it would mean that £2250 was paid by their employer. Whilst there are some who barely use their travel facilities it's not wouldn't take too many journeys to save £200 a month with them.
So it's added to income rather than being usage based? So if they don't use the travel the use the money? And that seems to be a higher tax rate, so any sympathy is limited.
Yes, it's considered a benefit in kind because money changes hands between the employer and RSTL. Someone who works for a TOC, where it's considered a reciprocal exchange of facilities and thus no money changes hands, doesn't get charged tax.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but it's deemed a benefit in kind and you pay tax on it whether you use it or not
The higher rate tax threshold has been frozen for so many years, despite high inflation, that it is now equivalent to having been set at £39k in 2021 terms, and that 30% of full time workers now pay it. By contrast, when the higher rate tax band was introduced in 1988 it was equivalent to £85k in today's prices.
Us 20% tax payers feel their pain.
Good job, that at no point did I want any sympathy. But understand, that it's not free, despite the term 'free' getting used flippantly. Especially if you only use a couple of boxes a year. I'm not at all moaning about the tax, just that people believe rail staff get FREE travel. It's not.
That remains to be seen. It may well depend on whether GBR becomes integrated as one legal entity, or whether it remains multiple separate legal entities. I would be surprised if the former happened, not least because it would allow secondary strike action (e.g. at all parts of GBR for a dispute only affecting one region).
Secondary action has been illegal for many years. Those taking part in any action have to be directly in dispute.
But that applies at an employer level. If all GBR staff fall under the same employer there's nothing to prevent ex-GWR staff striking over an issue affecting ex-Greater Anglia staff.
I seem to recall reading about a nationwide strike about DOO during the 80s, even though that was only planned to be introduced on the Midland region.
This is never going to be the main consideration in determining overall organisational structure.
The organisational structure doesn't necessarily need to be the same as the legal structure.
Presumably that’s why we’ve never seen national strikes across the major bus operators like Stagecoach, First etc as all the original regional companies are separate legal entities.
That was DOO for passenger services. There were concurrent negotiations about DOO for empty stock and freight trains as well.
Indeed it doesn't but there are still plenty of other considerations for both, as well as your somewhat cynical take.
Forgive me for being cynical when it comes to the rail industry, it's not as if there is anything that could possibly have led me to think that way
Getting a bit more back on topic, this is really interesting. I believe this means timescales have slipped, as the running line has been 'GBR will be set up around a year after the Bill reaches Royal Assent, with that expected in mid-2026 for a 2027 formal establishment of GBR.' If the Bill is still in the Committee stage of the Lords at the end of October, it likely won't be able to achieve Royal Assent until 2027. Or am I mistaken?
