Archive for December, 2008

Softworld Human Resource & Payroll 3 dates, 3 locations Glasgow Marriott, 24 February 2009 Reebok Stadium, Greater Manchester, 10 February 2009 Hotel Ibis Earls Court, 3 February 2009 Get closer to the latest solutions New for 2009, Softworld runs in 3 locations around the UK! Choose your most convenient show and meet with providers delivering [...]

SMP, SAP, SPP and SSP are all well-known statutory payments but there are many other circumstances where employees take time off and their employers have a statutory obligation to pay them. Well known examples are holiday pay, redundancy pay and time off for ante-natal care. But there are many, many more and they do not [...]

In June 2008, the Government published a consultation document entitled Dispute Resolution – Secondary legislation consultation that sought views on a number of measures relating to the reforms to the dispute resolution procedures in the Employment Act 2008. A review of the responses received from the consultation exercise has now been published and it indicates [...]

In July 2007, Regulations were introduced to exempt the provision of health screening and medical check-ups from income tax. The regulations came into effect from 14 August 2007. Prior to that date , the concessionary treatment of these benefits was as follows: “Do not treat expenses incurred by the employer in providing periodic medical check-ups [...]

Employers and agents are being invited by HMRC to volunteer to participate in a study of how they “payroll” in practice in order to explore further the idea of collecting tax on benefits-in-kind and expenses through the payroll. Initially, HMRC is particularly interested in small employers, agents or bureaux that already deduct tax from benefits-in-kind [...]

Acas has published a consultation document on a revised Code of Practice on time off for trade union activities and duties. The document also includes a draft Guide on Developing effective employee representation: a guide to managing provisions for time off, training and facilities. The Code of Practice provides guidance on the statutory rights to [...]

The Double Taxation Convention with Moldova, signed on 8 November 2007, entered into force on 30 October and is effective for income tax purposes from 1 January 2009 in Moldova and from 6 April 2009 in the UK. Further information: UK/Moldova Double Taxation Agreement The UK Payroll News is sponsored by HRD & Payroll Solutions

As generally expected, the European Parliament voted on 16 December to adopt an amendment to the European Working Time Directive that would phase out the opt-out from the 48-hour average working week within three years. The votes were 421 votes in favour, 273 against and 11 abstentions. The Working Time Regulations, which implement the European [...]

Interest is charged by HMRC when income tax and NICs are paid late, and credited when they are overpaid. New interest rates have been announced and take effect from 6 January 2009. Following the further reduction in the Bank of England base rate on 4 December, from 3% to 2%, the rate of interest charged [...]

The Labour Court has given notice that it has received an application for the variation of the Registered Employment Agreement (REA) for the Electrical Contracting Industry and also an application to cancel it. This REA sets working hours, hourly rates for pay and other terms and conditions for electricians and apprentices, as agreed between, on [...]

By Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx, Inc. From 1945 to 1965, the financial market in the U.S. moved upward. It then moved sideways until 1982, and up again until 2000. Right now, we are engaged in another great sideways movement. It could continue for another decade or so, and as businesses fail and members of [...]

HMRC’s periodic Notes for Payroll Software Developers is always a good source of news and the latest issue is no exception. Putting to one side the really technical bits, we learn, for example, that there are to be no “week 7” tax changes this coming May as there have been for too many years, but [...]

The latest issue of HMRC’s Notes for Payroll Software Developers provides the following additional information regarding the implementation of tax changes from April 2009. All of the tax changes for 2009/10 will be applied from 6 April 2009, namely all ‘L’ suffix tax codes increase by 44 points, e.g. from 603L to 647L P9 coding [...]

The Department of Social and Family Affairs has published on its website the changes to PRSI that take effect from1 January 2009. Further information: Advance notice of PRSI changes for computer users The UK Payroll News is sponsored by HRD & Payroll Solutions

The 2008 Employer CD-ROM, issued to employers towards the end of the 2007/08 tax year, provided the facility for employers to file their annual P14 and P35 Returns online if they had no more than nine employees at the end of the tax year. HMRC has confirmed that this pilot proved successful and, following discussions [...]

The interactive Employment Status Indicator (ESI) tool, available to both employers and workers to check that their employment status for tax and NICs is correct, has been updated and improved. Employers may rely on the results indicated by the ESI tool if the answers given to the ESI questions accurately reflect the terms and conditions [...]

HMRC’s Guide to filing PAYE forms online and paying electronically has been updated to incorporate all of the changes that take effect from April 2009, including reporting employees’ date of birth and gender on all forms P45, P46, P46(Pen) and P46(Expat) the requirement for all employers (i.e. PAYE schemes) with 50 or more employees to [...]

Employers registered for PAYE Online are now able to make monthly or quarterly payments to their Accounts Office by direct debit. The facility only allows single payments to be paid in this way as the amount to be taken must be entered in advance. Direct debit is an acceptable type of electronic payment, so the [...]

We have reported numerous cases where bricklayers and gangs of bricklayers were rules to be “workers” for the purpose of employment benefits. The case Castle Construction v HMRC highlights an entirely different aspect of employment status, namely the employment status of bricklayers for tax and NICs purposes. On 3 December 2008, the Special Commissioners of [...]

HMRC has published the 2009/10 version of technical booklet CA51/52 Submitting Year End Returns on Magnetic Media. Filing P14 and P35 Returns by magnetic media is only permitted for employers (i.e. PAYE schemes) with fewer than 50 employees during or at the end of the 2009/10 tax year. It is not an acceptable method of [...]