Archive for July 7th, 2010

The provision of private medical treatment or private medical insurance is an employment-related benefit and must be reported on form P11D.  However, such benefits are not taxable and not reportable on form P9D if they are provided to lower-paid employees, i.e. employees with an earnings rate that is less than £8,500, or form P11D if [...]

There are a good number of news items this week, partly prompted by the information published by HMRC in the latest Notes for Payroll Software Developers. Two important items explain the decisions reached by the European Court of Justice in cases that involve maternity situations and the inclusion of allowances in the calculation of average [...]

Use of the four-page form P86 Arrival in the United Kingdom, which used to be completed by employers to provide details of employees coming to the UK for the first time or after a period of absence, was discontinued from April 2010.  Employers should follow normal PAYE procedures, completing form P46 or, in the case [...]

On 1 July 2010, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its ruling in the case Susanne Gassmayr v Bundesministerin für Wissenschaft und Forschung (Federal Minister for Science and Research). The case concerned this Austrian Minister’s refusal to include an on-call allowance in the average earnings calculation for her maternity pay. The Higher Administrative Court [...]

Also on 1 July 2010, in a case closely related to Gassmayr, the same Chamber of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued is ruling in the case Sanna Maria Parviainen v Finnair Oyj.  This case involved the temporary transfer of an air hostess during her pregnancy to other duties and the pay she received [...]

The Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales met on 14/15 June and made a number of proposals relating to the wage rates and terms and conditions of agricultural workers from 1 October 2010, which include the following: an increase in the Grade 1 (Initial Grade) pay rate for workers over compulsory school age of [...]

From July 2010, HMRC is to start to trial the recovery of overpaid tax credits through deductions from benefit payments.  The trial will be extended shortly afterwards to include self-assessment debts.  Only debts under the value of £1000 will be included in the trial and participation by taxpayers will be voluntary. The trial is designed [...]

The 2009/10 tax year was the first tax year for which almost all employers were required to file their PAYE annual returns online.  As a result, relatively few paper P14s were ordered for the year end – according to HMRC’s published figures, there were 15.5 million ordered for the 2008/09 tax year but this fell [...]

HMRC has provided more information about the provision of P60 End of Year Certificates to employees electronically for the first time following the end of the 2010/11 tax year. There is no change to the requirement to issue P60s by 31 May at the latest. P60s may be made available for individual employees to download [...]

Although online filing of in-year forms was mandatory for employers with 50 or more employees for the whole of 2009/10, HMRC only began to issue penalty notices from April 2010 in respect of failures to file online from January 2010.  However, many employers have complained that penalty notices have been issued incorrectly.  To quote HMRC, [...]

The latest issue of Notes for Payroll Software Developers includes the following request from HMRC, partly addressed to system developers but primarily to employers.  It is reproduced word-for-word. “We would like to remind you that correct and valid data is critical to the effective operation of PAYE, and has a wider impact on the service [...]

From April 2012, all contracted-out “defined contribution” pension schemes will revert to “not contracted-out” schemes and, depending on their level of earnings, employees in such schemes will start to accrue pension benefits under the State Second Pension scheme. Schemes that are “defined contribution” schemes are Appropriate Personal Pension (APP) schemes, Stakeholder pension schemes and occupational [...]

Payroll software developers have been asked to standardise the report format of the Deduction from Earnings (DEO) Schedules that are produced by their systems.  This is in preparation for the introduction of a new Child Maintenance Service that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is planning for 2011. Standardisation of this report format will enable [...]

From 18 July 2010, the right of employees in Northern Ireland to request a contract variation to care for a child (i.e. a “flexible working” request) is extended to those who care for a child up to and including the age of 16.  The right currently applies only to carers of children up to age [...]

A Double Taxation Convention between Ireland and the United Arab Emirates was signed in Dubai on 1 July 2010. Negotiations for the Convention took place in Dublin in June 2009. If, as expected, the provisions for ratifying the Convention are completed by both countries in 2010, it will enter into effect from 2011. Ireland has [...]