There are changes proposed with the way employer’s National Insurance is calculated for the period of July. The proposal is more in line with the original guidance issued up to the 20th April.

There have been several changes announced for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme coming in from 1st July.

As part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme from 1st July 2020 workers can return to work on reduced hours whilst remaining furloughed.

Where an employee is in an auto-enrolment pension scheme there is a maximum amount that can be claimed for employers pension contributions, which is the contribution made or 3% of qualifying earnings, whichever is lower.

Now the dust has settled there is a little more clarity. If an employee is furloughed for the entire period claimed, then the employers NIC that can be claimed can be calculated as originally indicated:

We are getting a number of enquiries about this at the moment, and there are a lot of details we just don’t know. There also seems to be some conflict between some of the announcements and Government’s official guidance. Here are some key points:

Last week the Government raised the UK risk status to high and moved from the containment phase to delay.

Payroll Options has a coronavirus policy in the workplace focused on hygiene and disease prevention.

The Employment Allowance is £3000 that can be offset against an employer’s NICs (National Insurance Contributions).

Business continuity is critical, never more so than in payroll.

Although the majority of employers will now be in the swing of auto-enrolment pensions, in certain circumstances they are not required.

Benefits in Kind have to be reported via a P11D, as these are benefits an employee receives outside of the payroll but usually needs to pay tax for, such as a company car.

The Apprenticeship Levy came into force this April, and will effect companies or groups with a wage bill of £3 million or higher.

HMRC have requested that employers, and their payroll teams, promote Personal Tax Accounts (PTAs) to their employees. Employees can update their address and personal details in this way.

Most employers in the UK will have to carry out at least one auto-enrolment pension assessment. The aim of the assessment is to assign a pension status to your workers, and identify anyone that needs to be placed automatically in a qualifying pension scheme.

Salary Sacrifice, also known as salary exchange, is a method of paying into a pension scheme. There are other salary sacrifice schemes besides pensions, but they are sometimes treated differently for tax and National Insurance purposes.

Tax relief on pensions should be straightforward, but can become complex, and sometimes people get lost with what is supposed to be happening with their pension contributions. As more employers become involved with auto-enrolment pensions, we are commonly receiving questions about tax relief.

National Insurance for Directors is classed differently from that of employees. There are two methods which can be used for Directors National Insurance namely Cumulative (or Directors) and Table Method (or alternative).

Payroll Fraud is theft from a business via the payroll system. According to a BBC report by Jim Gee, former NHS anti-fraud boss, the NHS is estimated to be suffering around £5.7bn in fraud per year, with around £555 million to £1.49bn attributed to payroll fraud.

The P46 forms were used when an employee arrived without a P45, this was amended to a ‘shorter’ P46 and now is no longer used at all.