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This week, for a change, we have a number of relatively short news items on a varied range of subjects. Two of the items resulted, at least in part, from questions raised on the PayPerShop Forum. Some employers reported that they were receiving multiple and conflicting coding notices for the same employee and HMRC subsequently issued an apology and explanation, which we have reproduced in the newsletter. Questions concerning salary sacrifice schemes are very common on the Forum, and our Employer FAQ this week is the response posted on the Forum to one such question. It tackles a common misconception about salary sacrifice schemes.
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Posted February 4th, 2010 | No Comments »
Two new sets of Regulations have been published over the past week, namely the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which will require agency workers to be treated effectively as employees for the purpose of employment benefits, and a series of Additional Paternity Leave Regulations, which will allow fathers and adoptive parents to take up to a half of their partner’s maternity or adoption leave entitlements. Both provide a long preparatory period. We will be covering the Regulations in more detail when we have had time to check them over in more detail.
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Posted January 27th, 2010 | No Comments »
This is a rather technical newsletter so we have provided brief summaries of the two principal articles. The first article explains the new right to apply to undertake study and training courses during employment, which larger employers will have to handle from April 2010.
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Posted January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »
Our first newsletter of 2010 considers a number of changes that are effective from the start of the year, such as the new Acas Code of Practice on trade union duties and activities, additional resources for HMRC to identify employers paying below the national minimum wage, some revised booklets and the merger of the RCPO with the CPS to made the RCD of the CPS (try working it out!)
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Posted January 15th, 2010 | No Comments »
Some of the information that was made available immediately at the time of the Pre-Budget Report has now been made clear. The rates of SMP etc are increasing marginally from April but the rate of SSP is not changing. The regular annual changes to various employment law payments have also been announced – and some are going down. Not the rate of statutory redundancy pay, however, as that was increased last October and guaranteed not to go down if the statutory rules would otherwise have required a reduction.
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Posted December 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »
This week’s newsletter is limited to matters raised by the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report on 9 December and in other documents published at the same time. Predictably, the Chancellor had little to say on PAYE tax and NICs matters. There were, however, many unexpected changes announced in areas such as pensions, car and van benefits, canteens, travel schemes, tax avoidance and something called “PAYE scheme pooling”. And, also perhaps not too unexpectedly, the Chancellor announced a new, if temporary, tax on banking bonuses.
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Posted December 18th, 2009 | No Comments »
Our news items this week cover CIS monthly returns, civil service redundancies and late payment penalties. Our FAQ looks at the provision of living accommodation. We have also started to add public and bank holiday dates to our various payroll calendars.
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Posted December 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
This week we provide details of the new advisory fuel rates for company cars, which come into use from 1 December, only five months since the previous changes. The absence of any notice period to allow employers to prepare for the new rates was mentioned by HMRC a couple of weeks ago and if, as a result, you use the old rates during December, you will need to consider whether an additional payment to or from company car drivers will be necessary.
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Posted December 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
Earlier this year Scottish Ministers made Regulations that would have introduced new calculation rules for Scottish court orders from the start of the 2009/10 tax year with just four weeks notice. The uproar from payroll system developers, their Associations and the IPP quickly prompted a review and the Regulations were revoked at short order. They have now reappeared, this time giving developers four months to prepare before the new procedures take effect from 6 April 2010. If you have to handle Scottish arrestments, you will need to look at the new procedures for earnings arrestments carefully – they are different.
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Posted November 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
We have a small collection of car-related items this week – one especially for employers in the motor trade whose employees take home different cars every night, another for employers who use HMRC’s advisory fuel rates when charging for private use or reimbursing for business use of company cars, and our FAQ this week is for employers making mileage allowance payments to employees using their own vehicles on business.
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Posted November 18th, 2009 | No Comments »
