Remote working: 22 FAQs

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1. We are planning to recruit our first travelling salesperson. What legal points should we consider?
2. What are the relative merits, in legal terms, of employing a travelling sales person on salary plus bonuses, as against self-employed on commission?
3. We are taking on a sales director for Europe, based in Munich. Should his contract be governed by UK law, German law, or does it make no difference? 
4. We have taken on someone to represent us abroad, who will be away for up to six weeks at a time. Are there any formalities to observe? 
5. We use a self-employed sales 'consultant', whom we hardly ever see. Now HMRC is saying she is employed. How can we refute this?
6. A non-executive director does occasional consultancy work for us. HMRC claims he is employed. How do we prove otherwise?
7. We employ a sales director in North America. Should we be paying tax and NI for him here, or there?
8. We are making an employee normally based in Paris redundant. Do we have to make a redundancy payment?
9. We have to make two salesmen redundant. They arrange their own working hours. How do we calculate their redundancy pay?
10. A travelling salesman has landed us with a ruinous contract. He was acting within his powers. What should we do?
11. We suspect one of our saleswomen may be using visits to our clients to sell goods on her own behalf. What should we do?
12. An employee travelling in a company car was involved in a bad smash. At the time he was on private business. Is our insurance company liable?
13. We want to replace our current company cars with something more tax efficient, but the sales force is objecting. Can we just do it?
14. One of our sales people has been clocking up improbable mileage, he says on company business. We don't believe him. What should we do?
15. A travelling employee has run up a huge room bill - we suspect for porn. Can we deduct the excess from his next pay cheque?
16. Can we set subsistence payments off against tax? Is there a limit?
17. Are there health and safety limits on how far our sales people can drive in a day, or over how long a period?
18. Do the normal 20 minute breaks after six hours apply to people travelling on company business?
19. Are we responsible for safeguarding the client information on our salesman's lap-top? And if so, how?
20. Is it reasonable to make the use of a hand-held mobile phone while driving a sackable offence?
21. An employee has been accused of attempting bribery abroad, and now we are banned from the country in which he was operating. What can we do?
22. A salesman seems to be unable to recover from a back injury, and cannot travel. Can we dismiss him?

 

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