Archive for November, 2008

Nearly a year after it began its Parliamentary stages, the Employment Act 2008 reached the statute books on 13 November.  Its provisions affect every employer, not least because of the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures.  Does the new Act affect you?  We have provided a brief summary of the changes but you really [...]

The Minister for Treasury and Resources has issued his 2009 Budget Report and it will be debated in the States in December. The annual Budget Report usually includes recommendations for personal income tax allowances for the tax year that is two years ahead.  For example, the Budget Report in November 2007 included proposals for the [...]

Employers and their employees may enter into Agreements or Joint Elections in order to allow an employee, in anticipation of NICs liabilities arising on share option gains, to agree to meet the employer’s Class 1 NICs liabilities.  The Joint Election approach involves a document that legally transfers the liabilities to the employer but only if [...]

HMRC hosts a number of consultative forums to consider strategic and operational issues with its clients.  The Employment Consultation Forum is the principal consultation forum for employers and their intermediaries.  Members of the Forum include representatives from the Institute of Payroll Professionals, Payroll Alliance and the accountancy bodies.  There are a number of sub-groups, such [...]

Revenue has made a new electronic Tax Deduction Card (TDC) available for the use of employers. This facility helps employers maintain a complete employee deduction record of all employees’ pay, tax and PRSI details and is intended to replace the paper TDC used by some employers. An employer need only enter the annual Tax Credit [...]

The Chancellor will make his Pre-Budget Report speech to the House of Commons on Monday, 24 November 2008 at 3:30pm. Immediate information about the speech is available in various formats, as described on HM Treasury website. Further information: Pre-Budget 2008 The UK Payroll News is sponsored by HRD & Payroll Solutions

On 12 December 2008, the Labour Court will hold an Inquiry into applications for the abolition of the Catering Joint Labour Committee and the Catering Joint Labour Committee (County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire), and replace them with a single Joint Labour Committee for the catering sector, and the Hairdressing Joint [...]

Summary: The Employment Act 2008 makes changes in the following areas of employment law: the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures and, in their place, the introduction of a new statutory Acas Code of Practice changes to employment tribunal procedures, including decisions made without a hearing, changes to conciliation procedures, and additional compensation where [...]

HMRC’s Digest of Double Taxation Treaties has been updated to November 2008. Further information: Double Taxation – DT Digest The UK Payroll News is sponsored by HRD & Payroll Solutions

On 14 November, the Irish and Maltese Ambassadors to Italy signed in Rome a Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income.  The signing of this Convention completes Ireland’s network of bilateral tax agreements with other EU Member States. The Convention covers taxes on [...]

HMRC has made a change to its instructions on handling a P45 Part 3 that is provided by a new employee after the employee has completed a form P46 and the tax office has issued a P6 coding notice.  The form should still be destroyed and none of the figures provided by the previous employer [...]

This week’s newsletter covers two weeks’ worth of news and discusses a wide variety of subjects, including a review of Ireland Budget for 2009. Our longest and most detailed article explains new procedures for calculating the car benefit charge for employees in the motor industry who commonly take a different car home every night.  If [...]

The Acas revised Code of Practice on discipline and grievance has been approved by the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Before the Code comes into effect on 6 April 2009 it requires Parliamentary approval and it remains a “draft” until that approval is obtained. In revising the Code, Acas held a [...]

HMRC has published the minutes of the Statutory Payments Consultation Group meeting of 3 July 2008.  Among the matters discussed are the following points of interest: Statutory Payments Helpbooks are to be renamed.  For example, instead of “What to do if your employee is sick”, the E14 will be called “Employer Helpbook for Statutory Sick [...]

Applications from foreign (i.e. non-EEA or Swiss) skilled workers under Tier 2 of the new points-based system may be made from 27 November.  Also from that date, applications may be made from young people from Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand under Tier 5, the Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS).  Only employers that are licensed sponsors [...]

There are no increases for 2009 to tax credits and other reliefs, or to the rates of income tax.  The tax bands are increased as follows: Income levy A new income levy is being introduced that will apply at the rate of 1% to gross income up to €100,100 per annum or €1,925 per week.  [...]

In June 2008, the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council adopted a common position on the opt-out from the 48-hour week and on what constitutes on-call time – two contentious matters that the governments of the EU states have been arguing over since the UK’s opt-out expired in November 2003.  The compromise would allow the [...]

A tax information exchange agreement and an agreement for the avoidance of double taxation, between the governments of the United Kingdom and the British Virgin Islands, were signed in London on 29 October 2008. The agreements will enter into force as soon as both governments have completed the legislative procedures needed to give them effect. [...]

In preparation for consultation on the implementation of a new European Directive on temporary agency work, the Department for Business Regulation and Regulatory Reform (BERR) published on 30 October the findings of a survey on agency working conducted by Employment Market Analysis and Research, part of BERR’s Employment Relations Directorate. The main findings of the [...]

As reported in an earlier newsletter, the minutes of the 17 April 2008 meeting of HMRC’s Benefits and Expenses Sub Group reveal that there is a potential problem for some salary sacrifice schemes if they do not satisfy all of the statutory conditions on which their respective tax or NICs exemption depend.  For example, the [...]