We have talked about this before, but it certainly bears repeating. Up to half a million small and micro employers will reach their staging date in the next 12 months and many will not be ready in time and could risk fines. The Pensions Regulator has written to every employer alerting them to when their […] Read more »
Auto Enrolment Minimum Contributions: Phasing Date Changing
The date the Auto enrolment minimum contributions were due to increase has changed in order to align with the tax year. So now, instead of total minimum contributions increasing from 2% to 5% in October 2017, a delay of six months until April 2018 will be applied. Similarly, the planned increase in contributions in October […] Read more »
Christmas Gifts and Parties
It’s Christmas time again and some employers may be providing their staff with a Christmas bonus, a seasonal gift or a Christmas party. If a gift is given, you need to consider whether the item can be resold or exchanged for cash by the employee or if it is considered as trivial and therefore tax […] Read more »
2015 National Minimum Wage Rates
From 1st October 2015 National Minimum Wage rates have increased, so please ensure you are paying your employees correctly. Research suggests nearly a third of small business owners do not know what the National Minimum Wage rate is or forget that it increases every October. Adults aged 21 and over increases from £6.50 to £6.70 […] Read more »
Auto Enrolment: What if no staff are eligible?
Many small employers may have employees that are not eligible for automatic enrolment and therefore assume that they do not need to set up a pension. Whilst there is no need to set up a pension if you have staff that are not eligible because they are too young or do not earn enough, those […] Read more »
New E-Payslip website
The e-payslips site has been revamped with a new look and feel. The new URL is my.ePayslips.com When logging into the new site you can continue to use your current login ID and PIN. LOGO As part of the new look it is possible to add a logo to every page and change the colour […] Read more »
Summer Budget Summary
The Chancellor’s summer budget means several changes that will affect employers from April 2016. 1. Introduction of a new compulsory National Living Wage for workers aged 25 and above. Currently, the National Minimum Wage for employees that are 21 years old and over is £6.50 an hour, increasing to £6.70 in October 2015. For those […] Read more »
Auto enrolment: It’s the Law!
I recently read a scary statistic from an auto-enrolment survey which said 1 in 10 SMEs plan to ignore auto-enrolment completely whilst 11% of small business owners are still unaware of what auto-enrolment even is. Please do not let this be you. If you have somehow managed to miss all the national TV and radio […] Read more »
Auto enrolment for Directors?
Since Automatic enrolment will affect many more small employers in the next couple of years, there is some confusion regarding those companies with only one or two directors. We recently spoke to The Pensions Regulator who gave us their clarification on this. The Pensions Regulator will write to ALL employers informing them of their staging […] Read more »
Under 21’s National Insurance
From 6th April 2015, a new NI band called the Upper Secondary Threshold (UST) has been created to facilitate the abolition of employer National Insurance contributions for employees under the age of 21. The Upper Secondary Threshold is £815 per week. Earnings above this threshold will remain subject to secondary Class 1 National Insurance Contributions. […] Read more »
No more P35 Questions
HMRC has said that from 6th March 2015, the end of tax year P35 checklist will no longer be required. Employers will still however be required to report the Final Submission for the Year indicator with either their RTI Full Payment Submission (FPS) or EPS. The end of year checklist consists of seven declaration questions […] Read more »
Shared Parental Leave
On 1st December 2014, new regulations giving Shared Parental Leave and Pay came into force in Great Britain. This applies to eligible couples whose baby is due to be born or the child is placed with the adopting couple on or after 5th April 2015. This will replace Additional Statutory Paternity Pay and leave. If […] Read more »
New Holiday Pay Ruling
Hitting the headlines this month is the result of 3 Employment Appeals Tribunals (EAT) regarding the calculation of holiday pay. The workers won and the employers lost and the ruling means that where you require staff to work overtime, you must now include the overtime pay in the holiday pay calculation for the first 4 […] Read more »
HMRC error affects 5 Million UK taxpayers
The Daily Telegraph has reported that HMRC have made miscalculations in millions of taxpayers’ pay and tax calculations for the 2013-14 tax year. We have already been contacted by many of our clients whose employees have received form P800 which they believe to be incorrect as the forms show they have earned more than they […] Read more »
HMRC delays RTI late filing penalties
From 6th October 2014, HMRC introduce automated penalties for late in-year filing of RTI submissions. However, there is now a respite for small employers as HMRC have delayed these new penalties for employers with fewer than 50 employees until 6th March 2015. HMRC have sent electronic messages to all employers telling them when the penalties […] Read more »
New National Minimum Wage Rates
From 1st October 2014 the National Minimum Wage rates are increasing. Please ensure you review and amend the rates for your employees from this date. The hourly rate for employees under 18 years of age increases from £3.72 to £3.79 per hour The hourly rate for employees between 18 to 20 years of age increases […] Read more »
Automatic Enrolment Costs
A recent survey of employers being asked if they have encountered additional costs in respect of the new automatic enrolment responsibilities has revealed that the potential financial burden incurred could prove to be sizeable. More than 43% said they had faced additional costs with almost a quarter saying they needed additional resources. The expenses incurred […] Read more »
Flexible Working: New Rules
From 30th June 2014 the right to request flexible working has been extended to all employees. Until now, this right only applied to the parents of children under 17 or 18 in the case of parents of disabled children or those caring for an adult. All employees have a statutory right to ask their employer […] Read more »
Holiday Entitlement
With summer fast approaching, your staff will be booking their summer holidays and wanting to receive their holiday pay, so here are the basic facts for statutory holiday entitlement. * Workers have the right to get paid leave; accrue holiday entitlement during sick, maternity or paternity leave; choose to take holiday at the same time […] Read more »
£2000 Employment Allowance
So you may have seen the advert on the telly, or you may have had a lovely letter from 10 Downing Street saying the government’s new employment allowance will cut up to £2000 from your employer National Insurance bill. Around 1.25 million business employing someone will benefit from this new allowance and a third of […] Read more »