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Are you ready for the changes to employee expenses?
From April 2016 all employee expense Dispensations agreed with HMRC will cease to apply!
You will need new systems for checking expenses, HMRC will be supply examples.
Expenses which are not covered by benchmark scale rates are likely to paid and taxed via the payroll with the employee claiming relief through P87 and Self Assessment SA100.
Are you ready for the new regime?
New Childcare Vouchers from Autumn 2015
Childcare vouchers to be withdrawn for new employees
The existing benefits available in the form of childcare vouchers to employees will be withdrawn to new entrants in the Autumn of 2015. The current scheme saves National Insurance contributions for both employers and employees. Employees also save income tax.
English: British National Insurance stamp. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
New scheme to start in Autumn 2015
The new scheme for childcare vouchers will not be as good for many employees who currently benefit from the current scheme, but where both parents work and are self employed, they can get the government to pay £2,000 towards registered childcare.
How do I set up childcare vouchers?
Childcare vouchers are set up through your payroll scheme and must be available to all eligible employees to receive the tax benefit.
Alterledger can help
For more information on saving employer’s national insurance and preparing for changes to childcare vouchers, contact Alterledger or visit the website alterledger.com.
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Letters for under 21s
Changes for employees under 21
From 6th April 2015 employer national insurance contributions will be abolished for under 21s. If you employ anyone over 16 and under 21 years old you will need to use one of the new letters for under 21s in the national insurance category setting of your payroll software.
English: British National Insurance stamp. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Secondary contribution rates
This table shows how much employers pay towards employees’ National Insurance for tax year 2014 to 2015. The contribution rate calculated by your payroll software is set by the category letter.
| Category letter | £111 to £153
a week |
£153.01 to £770
a week |
£770.01 to £805
a week |
From £805.01
a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 0% | 13.8% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| B | 0% | 13.8% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| C | 0% | 13.8% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| D | 3.4% rebate | 10.4% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| E | 3.4% rebate | 10.4% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| J | 0% | 13.8% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
| L | 3.4% rebate | 10.4% | 13.8% | 13.8% |
National insurance categories
Most employees will have a category letter of A or D depending on whether or not they are in a contracted-out workplace pension scheme. There are categories for mariners and deep-sea fisherman; the more common categories are shown below:
Employees in a contracted-out workplace pension scheme
| Category letter | Employee group |
|---|---|
| D | All employees apart from those in groups E, C and L in this table |
| E | Married women and widows entitled to pay reduced National Insurance |
| C | Employees over the State Pension age |
| L | Employees who can defer National Insurance because they’re already paying it in another job |
Employees not in contracted-out pension schemes
| Category letter | Employee group |
|---|---|
| A | All employees apart from those in groups B, C and J in this table |
| B | Married women and widows entitled to pay reduced National Insurance |
| C | Employees over the State Pension age |
| J | Employees who can defer National Insurance because they’re already paying it in another job |
Employees in a money-purchase contracted-out scheme
This kind of scheme ended in April 2012 but some employees might still be part of one.
| Category letter | Employee group |
|---|---|
| F | Tax years before 2012 to 2013 only: all employees apart from the ones in groups G, C and S in this table |
| G | Tax years before 2012 to 2013 only: married women and widows entitled to pay reduced National Insurance |
| C | Employees over the State Pension age |
| S | Tax years before 2012 to 2013 only: employees who can defer National Insurance because they’re already paying it in another job |
How to claim zero rate of employer contributions
You should already have proof of age for all your employees. A copy of a passport, driving licence or birth certificate will be required to show that your employee qualifies for the new zero rate of employer’s contribution. The seven new categories are valid from 6th April and must be applied from the first salary payment after 5th April 2015 to benefit from the new zero contribution rate for employers.
What does this have to do with Auto Enrolment?
You need to have proof of age for all your employees aged under 21 to claim the zero contribution rate for employer’s National Insurance. By the time of your staging date you must assess all your workers, based on their earnings and age. To help you prepare for Pension Auto Enrolment you can make sure that all your employee records are up to date and that your payroll software has the full details for all workers including their date of birth. This is a good opportunity to clean up all your employee data.
Alterledger can help
For more information on saving employer’s national insurance and preparing for Pension Auto Enrolment, contact Alterledger or visit the website alterledger.com.
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What a difference a day makes
How about three extra days?
HMRC has relaxed the rules on “Real Time Information” for payroll reporting. UK employers are required to send electronic reports to HMRC with each payment of wages to employees. HMRC are now saying that you can submit your RTI report up to three days after the payment date without incurring a penalty.
Any employer who has received an in-year late filing penalty for the period 6 October 2014 to 5 January 2015 and filed within three days, should appeal online by completing the “Other” box and add “Return filed within 3 days”.
Outsource your payroll
Despite the relaxation provided by three extra days, the burden on employers is only likely to increase over the coming months. Auto enrolment is being rolled out to all UK employers over the next couple of years. With the new payroll year about to start on 6th April, now is a good time to consider using a payroll bureau – or at least checking that your current systems will deal effectively with auto enrolment pensions. For more information please and see how Alterledger can help please click here.
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The mystery of the Specified Charge
Many employers who submit mainly nil returns (ie small owner managed businesses) for RTI are likely to get a letter from HMRC with Specified Charges on them, this is because under RTI if you don’t pay any employees in a pay period you need to submit a return to HMRC, if you forget or mis a period, which with HMRC RTI Basic PAYE Tools is easily done, HMRC will create a charge.
HMRC define a Specified Charge as
These are amounts we have estimated to be due when we have not received the necessary RTI PAYE submissions. We base these on you previous filing and payment history. We do this under Regulation 75A Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003.
But as its an estimate is unlikely to be correct and on top of that HMRC will probably charge interest based on their Specified Charge.
If you get a Specified Charge check your RTI Submissions to makesure that you haven’t missed any, if you have missed one, post it now and then contact HMRC on Tel. 0300 200 3813.
steve@bicknells.net
Employment Allowance
Up to 1.25 million businesses and charities will benefit from it – and around 450,000 will not have to pay any Class 1 NICs at all in 2014-15.
On 6 March, HMRC sent employers an email, headed ‘Get up to £2K off your NICs bill’, highlighting the introduction of the Employment Allowance (up to £2,000 available for the tax year 2014-15 onwards) with a link to the guidance. Almost every employer who is a business or charity (including a Community Amateur Sports Club) paying employer Class 1 NICs on their employees’ or directors’ earnings will be eligible.
Employers need to claim the Employment Allowance using their 2014-15 payroll software, or HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools.
Ruth Bulteel HMRC
Service Company – Yes or No
It’s time to run your first RTI PAYE year end and you have your own limited company, how do you answer this question?
| Service Company | ‘Yes’ if you are a service company – ‘service company’ includes a limited company, a limited liability partnership or a partnership (but not a sole trader) – and have operated the Intermediaries legislation (Chapter 8, Part 2, Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 (ITEPA), sometimes known as IR35). Otherwise indicate ‘No’. |
The question is now a bit more specific, which is great, because you will only answer ‘Yes’ if you have operated IR35.
steve@bicknells.net
Are you ready for your first RTI year end?
Basically you will need to:
- Prepare P60′s (but no P14 and P35) by 31st May
- Submit your final FPS or EPS
- Update your Payroll Software for the New Tax Year
You can order your P60′s for free from HMRC http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/forms-updates/forms-publications/onlineorder.htm
Here is a great video from HMRC
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) plans to make its Basic PAYE Tools product for the 2014-15 tax year available on 3 April 2014.
The 2014-15 version of Basic PAYE Tools will be provided as an update to the existing version rather than a separate download, so existing users do not need to go to the HMRC website to get the update.
steve@bicknells.net
RTI non-filing notice?
If your business has a payroll then you may, like me, have received an RTI non-filing notice from HMRC. “Rubbish” is a polite version of my reaction. RTI should be the most straight-forward part of the payroll. The hard part is often calculating who is owed what if you have many non-salaried staff. So it would be fair to say that I was a bit miffed.
OK, so what is the consequence? Well until April, nothing. But, after April, possibly a fine from HMRC. So I phoned HMRC. Their assumption was that I had not filed a return, hence the RTI non-filing notice. More worrying was that they could not tell me specifically why I had received the notice. My theory is that it was caused by correctly filing a return on Feb 6th for a Feb 7th payroll which is after the HMRC PAYE month-end of Feb 5th.
I can only hope that HMRC get their act together with the RTI system. A quick look on the web revealed a tidal wave of RTI non-filing notices this week.
Of course if you really haven’t kept on top of things then you need to take a deep breath and file your RTI returns. And get some help from a Chartered Management Accountant if you need to.
Helen Alexander
Millbrook Financial Management Ltd
Will Temp Agencies avoid Auto Enrolment by using Postponement?
- Large employers (with 250 or more workers), have started automatically enrolling their workers and will continue to February 2014 (some employers may choose to start earlier)
- Medium employers (50 – 249 workers) will have to start automatically enrolling their workersfrom April 2014 to April 2015
- Small employers (49 workers or less) will have to start automatically enrolling their workers from June 2015 to April 2017
- New employers (established after April 2012) will have to start automatically enrolling their workers from May 2017 to February 2018
- Employers who chose to use Defined Benefit or Hybrid Schemes can delay their staging date until 30 September 2017
You can postpone the start of Auto Enrolment for up to 3 months and then re-test for eligibility using this method could mean that Temporary Staff Agencies could avoid Auto Enrolment for their temps. This also means that many agencies will use NEST because other pension schemes will not want to sign them up as they many not actually receive any contributions.
Pinsent Masons blogged:
Agency workers are different from other workers and so present particular challenges. Many are seeking work for only a short period. Many will register with a number of different agencies and will, in fact, only be ’employed’ by a particular agency for a short period. The auto-enrolment obligation applies to all workers who meet the age and earnings thresholds, but there are options which may assist those employing high churn groups of workers.
Employers can make workers wait up to three calendar months before enrolling them into a pension scheme. If the worker has left by the end of that three-month period, then there is no need to provide that worker with a pension.
If you do postpone, make sure you follow the rules otherwise there could be harsh penalties under the Pension Act 2008 Section 45
Offences of failing to comply(1)An offence is committed by an employer who wilfully fails to comply with—
(a)the duty under section 3(2) (automatic enrolment),
(b)the duty under section 5(2) (automatic re-enrolment), or
(c)the duty under section 7(3) (jobholder’s right to opt in).
(2)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine, or both;
(b)on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
steve@bicknells.net
Business Accountant 