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Retired staff travel card...

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Signal Head

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I'm not aware of any staff travel concessions ever being given instead of a pay rise- what gave you that idea? The unions would never have gone for that!

Additional boxes were given for length of service but that was additional to any rise. As retired staff, there is no cost for your travel facilities so it doesn't count as a benefit in kind. If you want to qualify for delay repay, you need to pay for your tickets- priv tickets do qualify.

I think the point is that, at some time in the past, provision of free/reduced rate travel would have been in lieu, at least in part, of remuneration, at least, that is my understanding, hence the facilities are considered 'contractual' and are protected, unlike TOC-NE facilities.

'Boxes' are merely a (relatively recent) change in the method of provision, and I cannot recall an increase in allowance being part of any pay negotiations during my employment, so in that respect, I agree with you.
 
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tiptoptaff

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I think the crux of it is simply this: the Railway as an entity considers the travel on boxes to be "free"

How that came to be I think is irrelevant for working out their value in terms of delay repay as the Railway will always value box travel as £0 per 48hrs of travel
 

najaB

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To those who say that Delay Repay should be payable: what would the amount be based on?
 
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And I have to pay for train tickets out of what's left after I pay taxes.
Apologies for not being clear.

I also pay tax on my Salary, however every year on my P11D I pay nearly £700 (goes as benefit in kind) which is taken off my tax code.

This is for my passes
 

bb21

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To those who say that Delay Repay should be payable: what would the amount be based on?
They pay their money to the taxman, therefore they should seek Delay Repay from HMRC. ;)
 

RPI

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Just skimmed this, if you buy a priv ticket then you are entitled to delay repay. I have a residential pass (priv season) and have quite often made a delay repay claim on that ticket, resulting in many 78p travel vouchers. If you were travelling free the no, you're not entitled to anything.
 

ag51ruk

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Apologies for not being clear.

I also pay tax on my Salary, however every year on my P11D I pay nearly £700 (goes as benefit in kind) which is taken off my tax code.

This is for my passes

You won't when you retire - they are no longer taxable, as your employer doesn't pay anything further for them
 

Signal Head

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Apologies for not being clear.

I also pay tax on my Salary, however every year on my P11D I pay nearly £700 (goes as benefit in kind) which is taken off my tax code.

This is for my passes

Is that the figure you pay, or the assessed value of the facilities, in which case aren't you just paying the percentage of that amount according to your tax rate?
 
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They pay their money to the taxman, therefore they should seek Delay Repay from HMRC. ;)
I thought HMRC only take :D

You won't when you retire - they are no longer taxable, as your employer doesn't pay anything further for them
Believe me i am so looking forward to retirement

Is that the figure you pay, or the assessed value of the facilities, in which case aren't you just paying the percentage of that amount according to your tax rate?
Quoted on P11D as benefits in kind, that is the figure I have deducted in my tax code:!:
 

najaB

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I also pay tax on my Salary, however every year on my P11D I pay nearly £700 (goes as benefit in kind) which is taken off my tax code.
A quick reading of GOV.uk indicates that you pay NI but not PAYE on them. Could very well be wrong about this though.
 

Darandio

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And whether it's NI or PAYE, i'm at a loss to understand what on earth it has to do with delay repay on retired boxes. Unless there is now an argument that boxes whilst in employment should be entitled to delay repay, and those in retirement should not be?
 

Mag_seven

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hi,
my first post and apologies if not in the right place, when I retired I qualified thru years of service for 16 "boxes". My first noteable delay/cancellation happened recently, it was the 1635 Bath spa to Portsmouth harbour was 8mins late arriving at Bath we boarded and at 1655 after a couple of fitters walking up/down the platform it was pulled out of service. It was announced that the next service to P.H. would be the 1735 which arrived a few mins late, this was full before all the 16.35pm passengers got on, but it got away after 10mins or so. Seen the advertising for delay compo, and wondered why we can't claim even a basic sum, as we are delayed aswell as fare paying passengers.
Years ago when I got the 3, I was told they were not a gift or concession but were in lieu of a pay rise...

I would contact Rail Staff Travel and ask them to confirm what if any "delay repay" arrangements are available if travelling on a free pass. I suspect the answer will be zero though!
 

greyman42

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You won't when you retire - they are no longer taxable, as your employer doesn't pay anything further for them
I am retired and have to pay £485 for them. I have to pay this amount by cheque or bank transfer.
 

Lemmy99uk

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I am retired and have to pay £485 for them. I have to pay this amount by cheque or bank transfer

You need to investigate this urgently.

I have never known any railway employee pay tax on the boxes either before or after retirement.

You may find you are due a large rebate.
 

steamybrian

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You need to investigate this urgently.

I have never known any railway employee pay tax on the boxes either before or after retirement.

You may find you are due a large rebate.

I have been retired since 1999 and have not paid any tax on my free travel boxes. When I was working I never paid any tax for any concessionary travel facilities although it may have changed?
 

furlong

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It may depend on various things (including whether or not the employer was a TOC). For example, where it is not handled yearly, perhaps the employer paid a lump sum to purchase the travel entitlement for the rest of the former employee's life, and that sum was taxed as a one-off benefit in kind. In many cases these travel facilities were purchased for an identifiable sum of money and a notional value could be calculated. Delay repay could then be handed in a similar way to a rover.
 

Hadders

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Quoted on P11D as benefits in kind, that is the figure I have deducted in my tax code:!:

So it doesn't cost you £700. Your tax code is reduced by £700 so that the amount you can earn without paying tax is reduced by £700. The effective cost on your Net Pay is £140 if you are a basic rate tax payer.
 

some bloke

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So it doesn't cost you £700...The effective cost on your Net Pay is £140 if you are a basic rate tax payer.

Is it perhaps more significant that it officially costs the equivalent of £700 gross pay (or value of work), rather than being simply free?

Some people might feel not so much hard done by in monetary terms from the absence of delay repay, but that consideration of some kind - at least in cases of severe delay - might show more appreciation or respect from the company.

It may be that often working out how much is due for a particular journey would be so complex that it is better not to ask the train companies to do it, but as there can be higher-value cases perhaps the general principles are worth asking about.
 

ag51ruk

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I have been retired since 1999 and have not paid any tax on my free travel boxes. When I was working I never paid any tax for any concessionary travel facilities although it may have changed?

It is based on what your employer pays RDG for the travel - in the past, that was generally nothing but most companies now have to pay an annual fee for each holder of travel facilities. That fee is a benefit in kind and become taxable, unless the employer pays the tax on your behalf as well (and I'm not aware of any that do). You don't pay the full value of the travel, just the tax on it (through an adjustment to your tax code normally).

On retirement, responsibility for providing safeguarded travel transfers from the employer to RDG, who don't have to incur any costs so no benefit in kind.

I'm very surprised to hear of someone paying for travel in retirement- although it wouldn't be taxable as the individual is paying themselves. This may be due to the company providing travel at retirement not having an agreement to continue this with RDG.
 

Signal Head

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It is based on what your employer pays RDG for the travel - in the past, that was generally nothing but most companies now have to pay an annual fee for each holder of travel facilities. That fee is a benefit in kind and become taxable, unless the employer pays the tax on your behalf as well (and I'm not aware of any that do). You don't pay the full value of the travel, just the tax on it (through an adjustment to your tax code normally).

On retirement, responsibility for providing safeguarded travel transfers from the employer to RDG, who don't have to incur any costs so no benefit in kind.

I'm very surprised to hear of someone paying for travel in retirement- although it wouldn't be taxable as the individual is paying themselves. This may be due to the company providing travel at retirement not having an agreement to continue this with RDG.

The only time I have heard of anyone paying for their Priv facilities is when a (non-TOC) employee was granted a company car (for personal as well as work use). The employee had a choice of either giving up their facilities or paying to maintain them. If they had given them up, that was permanent and they would not have been reinstated upon retirement, so the sensible option was to pay to maintain them until retirement when they would transfer from the employer as normal.
 

tsr

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Between the parallel lines
I was once travelling on a Box after an accident which left me temporarily on crutches. Gave up my reserved seat for a fare paying passenger as per the requirements without being asked. Train Manager can through shortly afterwards checking tickets and promptly told me (very quietly) to go sit in First

I’d never request someone on crutches to give up a seat whether they had a ticket or a free pass... good on you for such a gesture, though, and I’m glad the TM felt fit to rectify the situation!

Perfect solution!

Indeed. Least you can do for a colleague (or ex colleague, relation thereof etc.) who’s done something helpful.
 

greyman42

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It is based on what your employer pays RDG for the travel - in the past, that was generally nothing but most companies now have to pay an annual fee for each holder of travel facilities. That fee is a benefit in kind and become taxable, unless the employer pays the tax on your behalf as well (and I'm not aware of any that do). You don't pay the full value of the travel, just the tax on it (through an adjustment to your tax code normally).

On retirement, responsibility for providing safeguarded travel transfers from the employer to RDG, who don't have to incur any costs so no benefit in kind.

I'm very surprised to hear of someone paying for travel in retirement- although it wouldn't be taxable as the individual is paying themselves. This may be due to the company providing travel at retirement not having an agreement to continue this with RDG.
I did not work for a TOC but worked for BREL/Bombardier. I was made redundant from the company but it says on my Pass that I am retired. Does this shed any light on the matter?
 

Surreytraveller

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You could say that the entitlement to, and the conditions attached to, boxes was frozen on 31st March 1996.
Therefore, there was no entitlement to delay repay in 1996, as those are the conditions you are travelling on. Someone who bought a ticket a month ago, would be travelling according to the conditions under which that ticket was obtained.
 

tiptoptaff

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You could say that the entitlement to, and the conditions attached to, boxes was frozen on 31st March 1996.
Therefore, there was no entitlement to delay repay in 1996, as those are the conditions you are travelling on. Someone who bought a ticket a month ago, would be travelling according to the conditions under which that ticket was obtained.

I think this is the best way of looking at it
 

AndrewE

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I'm not aware of any staff travel concessions ever being given instead of a pay rise- what gave you that idea? The unions would never have gone for that!
Not exactly, but in the early 1970s there was a lot of dissatisfaction about (clerical) pay rates. There was a comparability study with the civil service, and the rates for CO1 to CO4 (the grades then) were exactly the same as Clerical Assistant/C Officer/Executive Officer/Higher EO. (A friend had recently left the railway to go to the civil service so I knew exactly what the pay rates were.)
We were told that as we got our passes/concessionary travel (4 times a year in those days) and the Civil Service got a non-contributory pension it was all OK. Except that a lot of railway staff didn't use their passes, but we paid 15% of salary for effectively the same pension. Not a good deal! So our "free passes" most certainly were paid for - by foregoing about 15% of our salary. On top of that inflation (19.1% in 1974, 24.9% in 1975, 15.1% in 1976) eroded pay badly too. One year there was not enough money for a pay rise so an extra day's annual leave was given instead (up from 20!) - to be taken when it suited the railway and in fact added to to Boxing day. So I also always bite when people complain that railway people were feather-bedded in terms of annual leave.
Additional boxes were given for length of service but that was additional to any rise. As retired staff, there is no cost for your travel facilities so it doesn't count as a benefit in kind. If you want to qualify for delay repay, you need to pay for your tickets- priv tickets do qualify.

I have been retired since 1999 and have not paid any tax on my free travel boxes. When I was working I never paid any tax for any concessionary travel facilities although it may have changed?
If you worked for a non-TOC after privatisation then when you retired your employer had to cough up about £1000 (maybe quite a bit more, I can't remember) for your travel facilities in retirement - and the next year you had to pay the tax on that amount - even though you might not have any income!

PS The BREL complication is that after they were separated from the railway the unions sold the travel concessions for a pay rise. A lot of the staff were very unhappy about that so eventually those individuals were allowed to buy them back (out of their pay) on a personal basis, so I think some individuals might still be paying yearly in retirement.
 
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Andrew1395

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I'm not aware of any staff travel concessions ever being given instead of a pay rise- what gave you that idea? The unions would never have gone for that!

Additional boxes were given for length of service but that was additional to any rise. As retired staff, there is no cost for your travel facilities so it doesn't count as a benefit in kind. If you want to qualify for delay repay, you need to pay for your tickets- priv tickets do qualify.
In the late 1980s BR extended the free mileage on residential priv seasons for staff entitled to London Allowance from 12 to 40 miles. This was to compensate for the allowance not going up by RPI as it had in all previous years.
 
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