Archive for October, 2010

The Coalition government has announced that the annual tax relief allowance for pension savings will reduce from £255,000 to £50,000 from April 2011 and the lifetime allowance will reduce from £1.8 million to £1.5 million from April 2012. The Labour government’s solution to limiting the amount of tax relief available to high earners making large [...]

In a decision given on 14 October 2010 in the case Fuss (Social Policy), the European Court of Justice ruled that it is a breach of the Working Time Directive to transfer compulsorily a worker to another job because the worker has asked the employer to comply with the weekly working time rules, even though [...]

In a decision given on 20 August 2010 (but only just published) in the case West v Revenue & Customs, the First Tier Tax Tribunal upheld a surcharge imposed on Mrs. West because an online payment of tax is treated as paid when it is received by HMRC, not when it is initiated by the [...]

In a decision given on 13 October 2010 in the case Gisda Cyf v Barratt, the UK Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the employer that a claim of unfair dismissal had been made out of time, ruling that the three-month period for making such a claim must run from the time that the employee [...]

On 30 September, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) announced the Government’s plans to develop flexible, family-friendly workplaces, including: the extension of flexible working (i.e. the right to request a contractual change to working hours, times of work and place of work) to parents of children under age 18, from April 2011, and [...]

As reported in an earlier newsletter, HMRC started to send out in early September a letter direct to individual taxpayers, informing them that HMRC’s records indicate that they have paid too much or too little tax for the tax years 2008/09 or 2009/10 tax years.  The letter is accompanied by a P800 Tax Calculation form [...]

The Double Tax Agreement between the UK and the State of Qatar, signed on 25 June 2009, entered into force on 15 October 2010.  It applies: from 1 January 2004 for profits, income and gains from shipping and air transport, from 1 January 2011 for taxes withheld at source, and for other taxes, in respect [...]

Winter draws on! Well, it is certainly on the way so make sure that you are prepared for it as many employers find themselves taken short when the first cold snap occurs. Does the heating system work? Does it need a service? Do you have heaters in case of a power cut? Do you have [...]

Dismissal of course means that the employment of an employee has been brought to an end by the employer for some reason or another – but if that reason is not fully understood, the employer may find itself in serious difficulty if the affected employee complains and goes to law. Dismissal comes in various forms [...]

Here we take our weekly look at answering some of the tricky HR questions we’ve been emailed. If you have a tricky HR question you needs answering email it to help@payroll-help.com and we’ll post the best here with an answer each week. Redundancy – bumping As part of a cost saving exercise we are doing away [...]

A highly successful tool in the effort to reduce absenteeism is the return-to-work interview. It is far more effective than general warnings or occasional clamp-downs which can seem unfair and thus cause resentment. These interviews are simple to carry out but require structure and careful preparation if they are to produce good results. You are [...]

Last month you were given this problem: Last month you were asked to determine, without using paper, pencils or calculators, how much earth there is in a trench that is 3 feet 3 inches wide, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and 10 yards long? The answer is of course – None. Otherwise it would not be [...]

We report this week on a recent Tax Tribunal decision involving mileage allowance payments.  The decision went against HMRC, but it is puzzling why HMRC made the initial decision as it conflicts with their published interpretation of the law in the National Insurance Manual.  See what you think but, if you do pay lump sum [...]

In a decision given on 12 August 2010 in the case Total People Ltd v Revenue & Customs, the First Tier Tax Tribunal allowed an appeal against an HMRC decision that lump sum payments paid for motoring expenses were part of the salaries of the employees concerned and therefore subject to Class 1 NICs. Where [...]

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published an 8-page booklet providing general guidance for employers on the working time rules, the national minimum wage and agricultural minimum wages, and on the rules applicable to gangmasters and employment agencies.  Links are provided to more detailed information available on the Business Link website. Further [...]

We reported last week the recommendations of the Employment Forum for increases to the minimum wage by 2% from 1 April 2011.  The Social Security Minister has promptly approved all of the recommendations, as follows: minimum wage increase from £6.20 to £6.32 per hour trainee minimum rate increase from £4.65 to £4.74 increases in the [...]

The States has already approved a new law to provide entitlement for employees with at least 2 years’ continuous employment to receive redundancy pay from their employer.  The payment would be equivalent to 1 week’s pay (up to a maximum of the average weekly earnings figure) for each full year of employment.  The Jersey Advisory [...]

Most employers have difficulty in obtaining a National Insurance number for every employee.  Some new employees are just very lax in providing their number.  It can take months for an employee from outside the UK to obtain an NI number.  In an organisation with many sites, demands from a centralised payroll office for NI numbers [...]

This week we have continuity of employment, changes to the minimum wage in the UK, Guernsey, Jersey and Ireland, flexible working, P11D reporting, and tax codes. The first day of October is a significant date in the payroll and HR calendar each year because it is one of the two dates on which most changes [...]

In a relatively short written decision given on 8 September 2010 (although only just published), the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled in the case Hussain v Acorn Independent College Ltd that, on being dismissed from his post as a teacher, Mr. Hussain had more than one year’s continuous employment, in spite of a break in the [...]