H M Revenue & Customs TAX Ruling

[tellytubby]

when your comparing wages I think your head might have been up your a**e a little too long when youre comparing pilot wages and chief mate wages. It takes around 6 years seatime and over a year at college to become a mate, and hes then in charge of the whole deck, stand in for the master should anything happen and in charge of the DP bridge whilst working.
So a chief mate on £300 a day, yup I see where youre coming from, get the flip flops onboard and big pay rises all round for the project.

I assume all you ROV bods contributing to this forum realise that all the marine crew read your crap, be a bit of a shame if the skipper refuses to sign your discharge book, as hes entitled to do, cos of the drivel your spouting. We might only be taxi drivers but we have all the ships stamps, haha

[Andy Shiers]

Not wanting to state the obvious and you realising it , but If you do not like the occupation you’re in , you can always change your profession.
I know of a few personnel on the bridge that have changed to ROVs as it paid more and was more interesting.
If you have say , a vessel , it’s main purpose is ROV operations , meaning the reason for that ship to be where it is , so that the ROV can do it’s job so that the company can get paid and yes the ship is a glorified Taxi just as the ROV is a glorified Taxi for the Data dog 😯
I have seen plenty of other nationalities on the Bridge but less in the ROV shack because it is more of a specialist job ( Growing techno’ and all )
I’m not trying to blow the old trumpet , It’s just that the ROV/Undersea industry is somewhat a smaller one than the massive international Shipping industry . That’s what I mean by specialist. This means more money as the likes of me don’t have to compete on the wage or skill level of other nationalities like Bridge crew. Is that any reason why After being well and truly shagged up the arse in tax by the Government AND usually spending more time offshore than most Bridge or Deck crew ( As it’s in their contracts plus they have the Seamans Uni0n behind them and we don’t ) I suffer more loss of privaliges than them and less time with the family 🙁 Why can I not have tax concessions like SED. 😕

[rovtastic]

Come on tellytubby…have a word….most of us in ROV served our time in our chosen trade eg Mechanical, Electrical, Hydraulics…..i was an apprentice for 4 year…then I went offshore as an ROV trainee……

At the end of the day….If Your on the ship working then your a SEAMAN………FULL STOP……

[Savante]

I really don’t think there’d be that many vessel masters/old men who’d go out of their way to screwing up a young lad/lassies tax situation, especially as most have families. Who the hell is going to single out 6 guys after a month of working back decks? Anyways, I found this for you…

part 2 of section 20 of the The Merchant Shipping (Seamen’s Documents) Regulations 1987……

"Any person authorised by this regulation to make an entry in a discharge book shall, upon the discharge book being produced to him for that purpose, make the entry unless an entry of the same particulars appears to have been duly made in it."

Hard workers should be rewarded, I think SED should be for everyone! 😆

Tellytubby though, take heed of Lostboys advice, you’ve probably got most of the pre-requisite knowledge to go into ROV yourself !! Problem I can see is that this industry is it fits n starts.. you should be happy with the long term career you have and if you are on that sort of coin, you should be very content yourself ?!

Off to go consume my body weight in coffee !! 😈 😈 😈

[Pugwash]

There are some very good points here and some intriguing inaccuracies too.
It seems that some people think the Merchant Navy stretches no further than the edges of the Offshore industry and hence seafarers only do trips of 28 days. Well the SED covers the whole of the British Merchant Navy which includes the deep-sea fleet. They do trip lengths of between three months and six months, get less than half their trip length in leave and are generally paid a pittance that no self respecting ROV pilot would raise his backside for.
Also, it has to be said that the SED was never brought in to reward hard work. Like it or not, it was the government’s attempt to try to preserve and encourage a supply of fully trained British seafarers to man the merchant vessels that Britain would require in a time of global crisis.
When the balloon goes up, it is estimated that Britain will starve in three weeks without the involvement of ships bringing food and supplies to our shores. That’s why the Germans tried so hard in both world wars to sink as many ships as possible. They were very successful sadly, because it lead to the deaths of far more British merchant seamen that the Royal Navy ever lost, totaling over 30,000 in the WW2 alone!
You may do your own calculations on this one and work out our chances of surviving another conflict in what is an increasingly violent world. So it is no surprise that the government needs to ensure we have a ready supply of fully qualified British seafarers at all times. And what is the best way of doing this? Knitting them wooly hats perhaps, or giving them a financial incentive like the SED. So the bottom line, literally here, is if you are a British seafarer that could perform the required duties on a seagoing vessel vital for the supply of our country in time of conflict, you get the SED.

[Anonymous]

Yea, good one Pugwasher. So all those of us who ensure a supply of oil and gas to Blighty and maintain comms through repair/ maintenance of subsea cables in a time of crisis should get SED. I’m up for that…..

😆

[Andy Shiers]

Not much I can retort to there 🙂
Except to say……………………..
There’s nothing wrong with a good cup of rosey-Lea 😀
If swinging ain’t ya bag , Don’t make a home in a tree !
The government ain’t fussy , where they get the cash , but if it looks like you have a cushy living , they’ll do their utmost to reduce your stash !
So Shipmates take warning The governemt think they’re so clever !
They are screwing up all our lives that’s why we should stick together ! 😯

[Savante]

Pugwash, very good points indeed. Makes mine seem rather trivial when you consider the deep sea fleets and the historical context in which the SED was introduced. Certainly good to have a poignant reminder !

What is your view towards effectively seggregating what you consider worthy candidates from us "hangers on" ? 😆 Would this include a discrimination against crew members on non-uk registered vessels? Or a removal of SED from marine crew working on "energy" and "telecoms" tasks in the north sea to counter? Can think of many DPOs on significant coin at the moment due to the market forces. What if ROV crew are made to attend courses as per ABs?

Incidentally, I don’t think the UK would survive any longer than 3 weeks without fullfilling her energy requirements either, but that’s a tangent. There are many examples to be had of workers spending >3 months at a time aboard vessels in far flung areas in GOM, Far east, Nigeria where the dangers are equally non-discriminatory.

[Andy Shiers]

Unfortuanately we have a bloody tunnel connecting us to the Frenchies plus very large power cables between Folkstone and Sangatte so that we can poach their wigglies 😀
But what you so suttley put …………………………. How would or why should you segregate the Ships complement if you are all working in the same steel home ?
The government is losing stacks of money already due to chasing ROV personnel out of the country !
The Golden goose Theory I’m a fraid 🙁
By screwing us as much as possible instead of taking the already large amount of taxes of us , They end up with Nothing ! Oil/Gas Offshore personnel are leaving the country in Droves to live in more hospitable places , Tax and weather wise 8)
You will get more Foreigners coming over to work here as they are cheaper but the government will not be able to tax them because they are foreigners 😯

Way to go Mr Prime-wanker-minister ! Way to go ! 🙄

[Pugwash]

I appreciate that the oil and gas business would be vital in times of conflict as the product would be absolutely necessary to our forces in the event of having to defend our island country. However, we have never been critically short of British personnel willing to earn good money in this business. The jobs pages of the “fit like” Times are extremely successful in gathering hordes of personnel happy to get a foot in the door. On the other hand, the jobs pages in the Nautilus Telegraph are nowhere near as successful and very often only succeed in attracting foreign nationals eagerly sucked up by owners attracted by the lower wages that they have to pay them. Even Nautilus, ever aware that their own membership was dwindling, together with their membership fees opened the gates to eastern bloc membership. So the argument can not be leveled at the segregation of individuals on a basis of whether they work on the same vessel or not.
Put yourself in the hypothetical position of a government minister sitting at his desk in London. He’s been given a mandate to ensure that if some seriously powerful organization in a foreign land thought that it would be a good idea to take a pop at good old blighty, how would he ensure the survival of Britain?
1) Have we got enough British workers to maintain the oil and gas business? Yes!
2) Do we have an internal infrastructure to allow the transport of critical supplies within Britain? Yes!
3) Do we have the necessary supplies within Britain to sustain our population for a protracted period of time? No!
4) Can we get supplies from other (friendly) countries, if so how? Maybe, but only by sea.
5) Do we have the ships and crews to operate a supply chain? No!
6) How can we ensure that we do have the ability to carry this out? We have some ships of our own and we may be able to use some foreign flagged vessels, but to be sure of having personnel that we can rely on to operate them we will have to ensure that we keep a pool of British seafarers ready at all times.

This scenario is exactly why SED was awarded to seafarers in the first place. It takes no account of fairness, sympathy or who deserves it or not, it was directly aimed at keeping ordinary bog standard British seafarers in a position to work for Britain in times of global crisis.
Personally I would like to see everyone who works at sea receive SED, but what I think is not the driving force I’m sorry to say. I am however; cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the discussions presently taking place and in February we may find that we can put our swords back into the cupboard.

[Andy Shiers]

Speak for ya self 😯
I stick my sword in a trunk in the attic 😕

[liddelljohn]

Gordon Brooon and the communists have worked out that the UK no longer needs a Navy or a Mercheant fleet so SED is no longer required , no more aircraft carriers or RAF either as the Fucking country is so crap and bankrupt no one wants to invade the UK anymore .its plague Island full of Toxic debt, failed banks ,scummy underclasses with no real industries home of Mad cow disease .
Last one out no longer even has to bother to turn out the lights as soon all the power stations will be old junk and have to be turned off.Uk is returning to the middle ages.

Sad …what was once a great beacon of Sanity and Democracy with a proud history has been reduced to the status of a 4th world idiotcracy .

[luckyjim37]

[Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:57 am Post subject:

——————————————————————————–

Gordon Brooon and the communists have worked out that the UK no longer needs a Navy or a Mercheant fleet so SED is no longer required , no more aircraft carriers or RAF either as the Fucking country is so crap and bankrupt no one wants to invade the UK anymore .its plague Island full of Toxic debt, failed banks ,scummy underclasses with no real industries home of Mad cow disease .
Last one out no longer even has to bother to turn out the lights as soon all the power stations will be old junk and have to be turned off.Uk is returning to the middle ages.

Sad …what was once a great beacon of Sanity and Democracy with a proud history has been reduced to the status of a 4th world idiotcracy
]

What a load of rubbish. The Royal Navy is about to get a new batch of Subs, the carriers are delayed by a couple of years but that is a planning thing nothing to do with Mr Brown.

As for all the other crap you just wrote just remember WE voted in a labour government it is up to us in around 12 months time to decide who we vote for.

Now for a little bit of irony. The labour party is the party which is founded on the back of the uni0n movement the working class man and all that good stuff. Yet it seriously disliked if you read the thread. Yet this site is pushing to get a uni0n going yet is slagging off the political party which will probably give the uni0n the most. How does that work?

The world as a whole is in a bit of a social and financial mess Bombs in Bali revolution in Thialand, High taxes in Oz and Canada, Threats of nights of a Thousand Knives in South Africa, Mass fraud on Wall street.

Think I will stick with the UK.

[James McLauchlan]

Now for a little bit of irony. The labour party is the party which is founded on the back of the uni0n movement the working class man and all that good stuff. Yet it seriously disliked if you read the thread. Yet this site is pushing to get a uni0n going yet is slagging off the political party which will probably give the uni0n the most. How does that work?

How does that work? 🙄

luckyjim37
Now for a little bit of webmaster! Lets get one thing perfectly clear. This thread is not about Uni0ns nor is it about how this website should be viewed from a political standpoint.

Also:
This ‘site’ is not (as written in your own words):

slagging off the political party which will probably give the uni0n the most.

The comments have not been made by this website and therefore this Site is not slagging off any political party. The comments may well have been posted by a few individual members of this forum who may, or may not, be uni0n members and may or may not be, associated with a particular political party. Those comments can not be construed as the views of this website!
Make no mistake about it, ROVworld.com is not politically driven nor is ROVworld.com affiliated to any political party.

I should like you to be aware that it is not your place in life to suggest that this site (ROVworld.com) should be aware of any political party. Therefore you should not point out that this website is, should be, or needs to be aware of, or affiliated with any political party for any reason.

ROVworld.com has existed for years (Started in the year 2000) to help the international ROV community in which ever way it can. In that time the webteam have added web links, news, a discussion forum for general and technical discussions, file downloads, FAQ’s and many other features. The uni0n side of things is yet another option open to our website members. As an option, website members can take it or leave it at their own free will.

This site is not pushing to get a Uni0n going.
The uni0n in question been in existence for years and, of late, a significant number of ROV people have joined the uni0n of their own free will. All we have done is made people aware of it’s existence and, by way of debate, discussed what it might or might not do for it’s members.

The ROV Uni0n membership discussed elsewhere in this Forum has nothing to do with the British labour party nor anyone’s political leanings.

Has it occurred to you that it may well be non uni0n members that may have passed comments on the labour party?

No matter which party were in power they would most likely come off badly when being discussed in the light of the financial mess the UK is falling into.

[mind-when-this-was-fields]

Weel weel marine and non marine crew members alike.
Just heard that the government has backed down after the RMT tabled a motion in the commons?
I have read a pdf of the rmt newsletter and it states that for SED purposes construction, construction support, well service and dive boats are still to be classed as vessels. 😀
So now can we all get along again and perhaps I can get my seamans book stamped now 😀

[Author]

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