Archive for August, 2009

New figures reveal that since April the Government has won back over £125,000 in unpaid wages for agency workers. The Employment Agency Standards inspectorate – which over the last year has boosted its powers and doubled in size – has won back more than twice as much money for workers since April than in the [...]

An important item this week is a series of “Myths and Realities” about Pension Personal Accounts, due to affect employers directly in 2012. The legislation is in place, most of the Regulations are out for consultation and the Personal Account Delivery Authority, the body responsible for the design and delivery of the scheme, is starting [...]

The Personal Account Delivery Authority (PADA) is a temporary body established by legislation to introduce the personal accounts scheme, planned for 2012. The new scheme is intended to complement existing workplace pension provision and will be a trust-based occupational pension scheme. During autumn 2009, the PADA is embarking on a ‘myth busting’ programme to explain [...]

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has published a new booklet providing guidance on all aspects of the employment of children in England, including age limits permitted hours of work (and effect on home-educated children) holiday requirements and work breaks (other than those under the Working Time Regulations) school leaving age permitted types of [...]

This week’s newsletter covers the new Acas guidance on time off rights for employee representatives, the tax information agreement with Liechtenstein, one of the last tax havens, which made the news headlines this past week, a range of updates to the Employment Income Manual, and some new compliance fact sheets. The Employer FAQ will be [...]

A wide range of changes have been made to HMRC’s Employment Income Manual. The Manual is written principally for the benefit of tax officers but is also published on the Internet for the benefit of advisers and employers. Most of the changes simply reflect statutory and other adjustments that have already been announced over recent [...]

A new Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) between the UK and Liechtenstein was signed in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, on 11 August 2009. The Agreement will enter into force as soon as both governments have completed their domestic legislative procedures needed to give it effect. Along with this announcement, the two countries announced the introduction of the [...]

To complement its new statutory Code of Practice on time off for trade union duties and activities, which comes into force from 1 October 2009, the Acas Council has agreed two new guides providing further information on the subject of time off for employee representatives. The first of the guides deals with managing time off [...]

HMRC has published a series of ten fact sheets to help taxpayers understand the new compliance framework that has been introduced by means of the Finance Act 2008. Two new factsheets have been issued: CC/FS7 Compliance checks – Information about penalties CC/FS10 Compliance Checks – Suspending penalties for careless errors The first of these fact [...]

There has been considerable speculation in recent months over the government’s apparent reticence to proceed with its plans to extend maternity and paternity rights next year. The enabling legislation is in place and there has been extensive consultation, in particular as to how additional paternity leave would be administered in practice. The latest statement from [...]

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published its annual review of legislative changes, including changes to employment law. From 1 October 2009, the following changes take effect: National Minimum Wage (NMW) increases in the hourly rates removal of tips etc. from counting towards the NMW work placements under Erasmus and Comenius Programmes do [...]

During 2008, HMRC consulted on the practice of employment businesses and “umbrella” companies to use overarching employment contracts to enable temporary workers to obtain tax relief on travel and subsistence expenses. Such contracts make it possible for tax relief to be obtained for costs incurred for commuting journeys, although such tax relief in not available [...]

The Finance Act 2009 is now in place, with a lengthy set of explanatory notes to accompany it. From a payroll perspective, there do not appear to be any significant changes from the original Bill, except in the case of the new Special Annual Allowance Charge, where a concessionary £30,000 limit has been introduced where [...]

Following on from last week’s announcement of measures to rationalise the setting of HMRC’s interest rates for late and overpaid taxes, HMRC has announced that the rates will be recalculated according to the new rules after the September 2009 meetings of the Monetary Policy Meeting. Even if there is no change to the Bank of [...]

The Finance Bill gained Royal Assent on 21 July 2009 and was published in full shortly afterwards with full supporting explanatory notes. Sections and schedules on the Act provide the statutory basis for most of the payroll-related changes included in Budget 2009, all of which have been explained in various newsletters since the April Budget. [...]

The decision of the London Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) on 24 June 2009 in the case Smith v Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust, clarifies the status for National Minimum Wage (NMW) purposes of “sleep-in payments”. In this particular case, Mr. Smith worked as a care worker in a residential home and, in addition to his [...]

From April 2011, the tax relief on pension contributions will be restricted to the basic rate where an individual’s annual income is £150,000 or more. To prevent large sums being paid into pension funds in advance of April 2011 in order to obtain tax relief at 40%, transitional provisions apply from 22 April 2009 in [...]

In May 2009, the Government published a consultation document on the implementation of the European Directive on Agency Workers. The consultation period ended at the end of July. Acas has now published a Discussion Paper on the subject, drawing together the views of various bodies on the issues of agency work. The Paper considers the [...]