Ryan air Rygge based contractors

[selfemployed]

Ryan air Rygge based contractors taxfraud

I heard from a friend working at the norwegian tax office that most probably the brookfield selfemployed contract is illegal according to norwegian laws. The main problem beeing that norwegian labour laws are very strict, and ryan air is avoiding taxes for social securities. A big company like ryan air should have employees and not contractors. In Norway a selfemployee must self make sure to pay all the taxes. Like 14% worker fee tax, + 30 up to 45 % income tax depending on salary and deductions. The subcontractor or a contract may pay tax up to 59% if no income deduction. The tax office will look into ryan air and the company handling all the subcontracts "brookfield" at Rygge base.......Recently some polish workers won in court as the employer forced them to be self employed. The court said the company was cheating taxes by its buisness model based on self employees also cheating some uknowing polish workers.

In norway there is a big difference if you work as self employed or employee. An busdriver can never be self employed unless he ownes his own bus. Also an self employed has no social benefiths like an employee. If an ryan air pilot is working as an employee you are garanteed sickpay, social security etc. The company must pay the worker tax 14% and the employee pay the income tax. But then again if you get sacked the goverment pay you 66% of your salary in unemployment wage for up to 3 years, then your headed for soscial minimum wage.

google translate this story from norwegian:
Knusende dom for NTC | www.frifagbevegelse.no

Those self employed brookfield pilots based at rygge not paying taxes, be careful, recoommend you to contact the norwegian tax office as soon as possible to clearify.

This is why they got interested:
Ryanair faces tax probe in France - Irish, Business - Independent.ie

In norway selfemployed is not commonly used as its conditions are not normal to the norwegian labour code. If a contracter gets fired he has no rights. The contractors usally have 3 months notice, but ryan air can just put them on stby thus no fly no pay. As an employee you have right to pay, thats why the court in norway think this is a fraud of taxes.

I think that this kind of contracts show that the pilots dont know much about law, taxes and social security, thus hope this helps.

[RAT 5]

Interesting comments and info. All will be revealed in time. Your last comments about the knowledge of pilots and contracts is perhaps well meant, but not quite accurate. I suspect many pilots suspect they are being treated outside the legal framework, or very close to the edge of it, but if they don't play ball they get no job. Being x'illions in debt they decide it is better to take a chance, and if the bogey man comes they hope the real villians will get the red hot poker where the sun don't shine.

[teddyman]

Stop picking on Ryanair

I can not understand why you are picking on Ryanair. Contractpilots have been around for centuries. So has the tax authoritites. Stop having these discussions on PPRUNE!

[Jack Pot]

What about Norwegian?

Norwegian has been using contractors for a long time, thereby avoiding tax and social responsibility. Guess an investigation is about to begin there as well? ...or is Kjos, the national hero, able to avoid such a thing?

[selfemployed]

sorry for the mistranscript, it looked nice before I sent it.

I you want to read it heres the adress, copy it an translate it with google translator.

Skatteetaten - Arbeidstaker eller nćringsdrivende? - Nĺr er det nćringsvirksomhet?

thanks

[bfisk]

Norwegian has been using contractors for a long time, thereby avoiding tax and social responsibility. Guess an investigation is about to begin there as well? ...or is Kjos, the national hero, able to avoid such a thing?

See there's a difference between being a contractor, and having a non-permanent employment contract.

To my knowledge, the 6-month contracts Norwegian issue are 6-months employment contracts. Even though the length of employment is given (ie it's non-permanent), it is still employment, and of course the employer would have to answer for social responsibilities.

Might not be ideal for a pilot (as opposed to full-time indefinite employment), but it's fair - you know what you get, you might have certain rights if positions open at the end of a contract, it's legal, and you run no personal risk of (involuntary) tax fraud.

--------------------------------------
Edit: a litte quick there, see posts below

[Jack Pot]

Well...what can I say..

bfisk - I have no reason to believe that the contracts being offered from DY or FR for that matter, are illegal. Something is strange though.

The DY contracs are all like FR contracts offered through 3rd party agents, and all pilots are hired as independent contractors on time limited contracts, which means they are not employees of Norwegian nor the agent bureaus. (On a site note; some of the early DY contractors have now been offered a permanent employment contract)

What I do find strange is, if the Ryanair contracts attract a lot of attention from norwegian authorities why don't the Norwegian contracts do the same?

Does DY pay "trygde" tax for all their contractors? Does FR?

[bfisk]

It has also come to my attention that non-permanent contracts are infact generally forbidden in Norway. It seems you can only hire temorary people for certain well-defined projects (or something). So I stand corrected on that.

[zerotohero]

I have to quote this

"The norwegian sociaty will consider this as fraud, because you dont contribute to the norwegian social system."

Maybe the case, but a lot of the guys working there dont live there full time, they fly in, do 5 days work and fly out, they live very close by the airport in a hotel or B&B or shared flat, dont use the medical services, if they do probably pay for it through insurance, dont use the schools, or a vast portion of any Norwegian social system, they fly in work fly out, and probably pay tax in the country they do live/consider home.

But any money they do spend there on rent/food/anything they buy is taxed and that money goes to the government and the rest to the vendors, so there no giving zero back.

Just a thought.

P.S I dont agree with the full time contract system FR use, I just dont see a way to fight it and if I quit in protest the next shiny f(ATPL) will take my place and FR wont give it a moments thought, sad yes but also true unfortunately.

[bfisk]

In Norway, if you live in Norway and pay tax abroad, that will normally be 100% deductible from your tax in Norway (kredittfradrag). If you are not norwegian and you live outside Norway, but commute to work in Norway, and you're not paid in Norway, then I don't believe it's taxable in Norway either. So the system is actually fair that way, in that you shall not be taxed for the same income twice. However, it's not up to each person to decide (based on their percieved use of the system) -- if you have the right to use schools, hospitals and welfare systems, you pay tax for that right, not the actual use. And whether we like it or not, the tax system can come back to bite a person in the ass up to 10 years later, with hefty fines for those without their paperwork in order. So while the moralistic part is one argument, perhaps the biggest argument is to avoid the risk of being caught.

[plain-plane]

There is only one person responsible for your taxes: you.


Ps: according to my info you will find most RYG FR drivers will fall under:
”If you are not norwegian and you live outside Norway, but commute to work in Norway, and you're not paid in Norway, then I don't believe it's taxable in Norway either.”

[sarah737]

Selfemployed, you sound like a windup merchant or a jealous troll!
FR pilots don't have anything to fear, as long as they respect the relevant double taxation agreement and the rules of self employment in their country of RESIDENCE.
Do LH or BA pilots pay Norwegian tax when they are nightstopping in Oslo?
Why should FR pilots pay Norwegian tax?

[SD.]

Maybe because the FR based crews are living and working out of Rygge on a full time basis?

[BoeingDreamer]

From what I do understand, to be legally correct when self employed, you must NOT be only working for one company. If you are self employed, but only do services for ONE company, then you are employed by that company. So to be correct legally, you would have example few months fly for Ryan Air, few months for EZY and maybe a third company. Then you would be able to classify yourself as self employed.
This was my understanding, not sure how airlines/agencies get around that loop. Thought this was both in the UK and Norway!

[BoeingDreamer]

As a general guide as to whether a worker is an employee or self-employed;

If the answer is 'Yes' to all of the following questions, then the worker is probably an employee:

Do they have to do the work themselves?
Can someone tell them at any time what to do, where to carry out the work or when and how to do it?
Can they work a set amount of hours?
Can someone move them from task to task?
Are they paid by the hour, week, or month?
Can they get overtime pay or bonus payment?


If the answer is 'Yes' to all of the following questions, it will usually mean that the worker is self-employed:

Can they hire someone to do the work or engage helpers at their own expense?
Do they risk their own money?
Do they provide the main items of equipment they need to do their job, not just the small tools that many employees provide for themselves?
Do they agree to do a job for a fixed price regardless of how long the job may take?
Can they decide what work to do, how and when to do the work and where to provide the services?
Do they regularly work for a number of different people?
Do they have to correct unsatisfactory work in their own time and at their own expense?

[edymonster]

If this causes a problem for Ryanair the simple solution for them will be close the base!

[BoeingDreamer]

Hmm - don't think RYR will start shutting down their operations all over Europe because of this. They might just have to start employing their pilots.

I would think short term it is fine, but at one stage I think this is illegal, both in Norway and other countries in Europe.

Anybody with serious accounting experience might wish to make a comment!

[edymonster]

I didn't say shut down there operations if the only problem they have is with a Norwegian base then they would close it down. But to be honest we don't even know if it is a problem yet for sure.

They would shut a base down if things weren't going there way because they have done it before! Plenty of airports in europe wanting there business, you just have to see by how many bases they open!

[Jack Pot]

FR vs DY

bfisk or RTO you seem to be well informed or at least have some good informers:

Is DY paying Trygde tax to the Norwegian tax authorities for their contract pilots? YES or NO?

As far as I am informed, contractors get the full monthly salary/fee (no tax deductions) according to their contract placed on an account choosen by themselves, no questions asked. The contractor will then answer for the tax himself/herself.

So I dont see the big difference between the FR and DY contracts. In both cases, it looks like it is just a simple way to get around the tax authorities to save some tax money. And it doesn't make a difference if someone got a permanent contract afterwards.

I therefore fail to see why someone is picking on FR only when the exact same procedure is used by DY. Could be patriotism, could be that Kjos is The Chosen One, but then again...the tax authorities in Norway should start investigating both DY and FR about these things in order to have a fair and level playing field for all airlines in Scandinavia or Europe for that matter.

[Jack Pot]

DY Contractors - Not comparable at all in this picture. What happens here is that DY Contractors are employed by PARC (A real, serious company) during their probationary months, and then offered permanent employment with the airline upon termination of probation. The probationary period counts as temp. employment well within Norwegian law.

Well if this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, DY is the first airline in the world where you have to fly as commander (pilot on probation) for 6 months before you automatically transfer to a position as permanently employed first officer. What a funny world you have in Norway.

Is it stated in the contract with Parc, that the 6 months of service is a probation period, and once the Parc contract terminates, then you automatically transfer to a permanent contract with DY? Of course not!

Contract captains has been flying for DY for years without any offerings from DY about permanent employment. If there is a real need for pilots, why not employ the pilots right away on a permanent contract - instead of this contract chaos.

As said before, it certainly looks like we have a case of severe patriotism here. For some reason FR is always treated as the black sheep in their class. I do agree that they have some questionable policies, but they are not the only ones! DY is exactly as creative as FR when it comes to using contractors and thereby optimizing their crewcosts compared to other airlines. An investigation into tax fraud should include not only FR but certainly also DY.

Btw.. the only ones who can ruin the T/C for pilots, are the pilots themselves. And they have been good at it lately. Always someone who will fly for food!