membershipfocus policy & research
access to CIPP versions of these tables via its website in time for the new tax year. We shall have more on this in a later issue after the February meeting and we also hope to have some feature articles on these subjects soon.
Employment allowance We then moved onto the employment allowance which commences in April 2014; at the time of writing, guidance has not yet been published. As you may know this will be claimed through the employer payment summary (EPS), via payroll software or HMRC’s online tools. It is expected employers will only need to claim once and then continue to receive up to £2,000 in employer national insurance savings indefinitely or until the limit increases or the scheme ceases. A concern raised by the forum attendees was what happens if the employer forgets and they are no longer eligible. It is expected there will be a full set of frequently asked questions available to help employers before the start of the tax year.
One question was as this allowance can only be claimed in the 2014/15 tax year, what will happen where the employer submits their real time information for month or week one early. HMRC confirmed that as long as the EPS relates to the new tax year (within the relevant timelines) then it will be accepted. The CIPP would strongly recommend you talk to your software provider as they might include additional safeguards to help employers. This new allowance is not available to the public sector and local authorities etc, which most will agree is probably right – “give with one hand and take with the other”. However, we are really disappointed that the government has also excluded domestic employers e.g. those parents who employ nannies. It could be argued that these parents are contributing to the tax system by working, thereby having to employ nannies to take care of their children, so is it right that they are excluded? Karen raised this concern with the employment allowance representative who agreed to feed this back to their policy colleagues. We are not hopeful of a change to legislation but will await further information. There have been some suggestions of a possible workaround to these rules which the team are currently
...OTHERWISE WOULD BE NO HELP AT ALL AND THEY WOULD NOT GET ANY FINANCIAL RECOMPENSE FOR PAYING OUT SICKNESS PAY
investigating – so watch this space for more.
Sick pay The agenda then moved to sick pay. Unfortunately the representative was from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) so whilst the concerns of the small businesses were shared for the minutes in respect of losing the percentage threshold scheme (PTS) and some micro businesses not being entitled to the employment allowance (therefore a perceived double whammy), the discussion could not be pursued further. This also meant the concerns around the two-year retrospective claims could not be addressed either. The Statutory Payments Group leads in this area and the representatives from this group have been asking how the retrospective claims will work as far back as May 2013 and we hope the answer will be forthcoming soon. The DWP representative did then go on to talk about what the abolition of the PTS was paying for and this is where it got really interesting. Basically it is paying for a sort of occupational health scheme designed to help small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) get people back into work. The DWP went onto say there would be additional benefits to employers – the first being employers will not need to keep statutory sick pay (SSP) records. This of course is not strictly true and was voiced, as whilst employers will not need to keep records in respect of the PTS they will still need to keep all other SSP records to demonstrate compliance to HMRC – so, no savings there then. The second was a tax saving for the employer by way of allowing employers to provide certain health benefits – not a healthcare scheme though – such as health related interventions recommended by the new Health and Work Service to the value of £500 per annum, per employee. Of course, it is only tax savings to the employer where they might have used a pay as you earn settlement agreement to pay for the services, or perhaps Class
1A employer national insurance. (It is interesting this was referred to as a ‘tax saving’.)
If the information here is perceived as being rather sceptical then it reflects the author’s aim as at the moment the Policy team are sceptical. Why? For a SME to receive any form of advice from the service it has to have the permission of the employee; where permission is not given there appears to be no recourse for the employer.
Discussion did ensue around what could or could not be included in contracts, and whether there was a link to the benefits system. However, what became abundantly clear was this might help the SME get someone back into work who wanted to be helped but otherwise would be no help at all and they would not get any financial recompense for paying out sickness pay either. We will watch what happens with this new scheme as it is hoped to be in place in the autumn of 2014; yes, a good six months after PTS has been abolished.
Shared parental leave We then had an update on the progress of shared parental leave. We have covered this in more detail previously and the Policy team will be producing a webcast as soon as all the regulations have been finalised. This new legislation is due to come into force from April 2015 in respect of maternity, paternity and adoption changes but early births will mean it could come into force at the end of this calendar year. Some of the other changes, such as ante-natal appointments for fathers/ partners, will come into force from October 2014. At the time of writing the guidance is still not published.
Real time information We then received an update on real time information. Members of the group including the CIPP took the opportunity to raise their concerns once again in respect of the forthcoming penalty regime. HMRC heard loud and clear that the representatives of this group do not have
PayrollProfessional 7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56