Took a few bits to the local scrappy yesterday. Nothing stolen, stuff customers asked me to take away.
Apparently some new regs came into force in December 2012. Had to show my photo driving license and they paid me by crediting my debit card. Only came to £20.
It seems that the days of the plumbers perk are gone. No more beer money to trouser.
I realise that its to try & stop people nicking lead & copper off of roofs - there was a spate of copper pipes being nicked off chiller units round here recently, but I don't imagine that will stop.
Not to mention the nicking of drain and manhole covers of course. I do hope your driving licence is not one of the 2 million DVLA say did not have new pictures supplied when they were renewed and who will be fined £1000. As we heard on the news this morning.
I'm sure the pikeys will have found a way round it already,
The driving license thing isnt exactly that secure, last time vosa did a raid on a local truck firm where my parents live, they found 7 drivers using copies of the same license, photo's were different in each one, but all other details related to one bloke... who also worked there, eastern european tho,
And what happens if you don't drive, ok not many people will take a wheelbarrow of scrap on the bus, but when i was a teenager i took bits of scrap i had accumulated in my garage to the scrappie in town on my push bike.
The debit card bit may be a little harder to get round, but i'm sure there are ways,
I took a load of old copper and a washer shortly after the new law came in and the scrappy said business was down massivley but the week before it was crazy busy, blocking the road outside (doubtless all were totally legit disposals ;).
So if less people take in scrap will the price will start to rise (supply/demand)?
Also you'd only pay income tax if you make a profit, so my old washer which cost £200 new and got £5 for scrap, so thats £195 copper I can sell with no tax liability!
AIUI, the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill is still at Committee stage and is due to be considered next Friday.
In which case you might have to satisfy the scrappy of your identity in some other way. It will be an offence for them not to establish your identity but there is some flexibility as to how they do so.
but they are ways with an audit trail back to some real person, which will eventually see said real person in the dock if the abuse is large enough to be followed up
Digging further, there is a provision in the law for the minister, via the DVLA, to withdraw any form of licence (s)he wishes to at any time, provided that all such licences be re-issued in the new form following payment of the required fee.
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print sources claim to quote DfT saying that this will occur in
2015, but I can't yet find their original source.
You only pay income tax if it's a regular business.
Selling the odd bit of scrap (or anything else for that matter) doesn't have to be declared as income. It's only when you do the selling 'regularly' and/or as a business that it needs to be declared.
If you believe in conspiracies, then this new Law is to stop people making money by not declaring their scrap. So, now you have weighed it in, there is a record of you doing it. If you now get a Tax Investigation, then they will see you have declared this scrap payment. Then they will ask what you took in cash in the previous years, and will backdate what they think you have taken. It's a bad idea to weigh it in yourself if you want to avoid tax, and, not so much the tax on what you have just weighed in, but the back tax that will be levied on you.
'Itinerant' traders can still pay cash for scrap. But, of course, 'itinerant' traders are the salt of the earth, so can be trusted to not buy any stolen metal. (for the hard of thinking, maybe I should put a smiley in there)
The scrap dealers who took in stolen plaques/statues/lead etc will not stop their nefarious activities, it would be clear to them, before, and now, that no-one would weigh in a bronze plaque or statue that would cost £1000's to replace, yet they knowingly pay for the stolen goods, and presumably ship it out of the Country pretty quickly so they aren't caught. New Laws will not stop these criminals, it may stop, or certainly hinder the low-lifes at the lowest level, but people stealing whole church roofs or bronze plaques will not be deterred at all.
For a business, only if you make a profit. You can deduct the mileage, the Waste Transfer Licence fee etc etc...
For the private individual weighing in the offcuts/waste from a plumbing project it is highly unlikely that there will be any profit. The orginal cost of the bits (if known) is going to be much higher than what the scrappy will pay.
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