Archive for February, 2011

When an employer makes a change to contractual terms and conditions, can an employee later argue that the changes does not apply?  Yes – in the circumstances described in the recent Morgan v Network Europe Group case.  But the situation can be prevented, as the EAT reveals. An important Government announcement this week is that [...]

In a decision given on 14 January 2011 in the case Morgan v Network Europe Group Ltd, the London Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled that, where an employee has been issued with new terms and conditions but no attention is drawn to a significant change, the employee is not deemed to have accepted the variation. [...]

On 17 February, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced a review of sickness absence provisions to explore what can be done to help more people stay in work and examine whether the balance of costs are shared appropriately between individuals, employers and the State. The review will look at short-term sickness absence, where costs are [...]

The right of employees to make a formal request to their employer for time off to undertake study and training was introduced in April 2010 in organisations with 250 or more employees.  The intention was to extend the right to all organisations from April 2011. However, following a consultation exercise in summer 2010, the Government [...]

The following are extracts from the latest weekly informal updates (dated 11 and 18 February) from HMRC to employer representatives. P9s – Annual coding message for employers We have recently begun the annual process of sending out Coding Notices (P2) for the 2011-12 tax year to individuals. You may well get questions from your employees [...]

In recent months, HMRC has begun to provide “toolkits” for tax agents and advisers to help them check that returns are completed correctly, focus on key areas of potential error, and meet the “reasonable care” requirement.  A particularly useful toolkit, on Expenses and Benefits from Employment, was issued in October 2010. One of the latest [...]

Prior to tax year 2011/12, the P60 End of Year Certificate (the employee copy of the P14) could only be issued in paper form, even though employer’s P35 and P14 Returns could be filed online.  That restriction was removed by amendment regulations and, from the end of the 2010/11 tax year, employers may, if they [...]

The income tax legislation provides a number of tax exemptions for benefits provided to disabled employees.  These include: calculating the taxable value of a car with automatic transmission, which is provided for personal use as if it were a manual transmission car, in respect of its list price and its CO2 emissions figure, and accessories [...]

On 15 February, the Treasury Minister announced that no changes are proposed to income tax allowances and rates and Class 1 NICs rates for the tax year commencing 6 April 2011. The changes to NICs thresholds are proposed as follows: lower earnings limit, from £97 to £102 per week upper earnings limit, from £730 to [...]

Each week we receive a number of payroll questions on our forum, and here are this week’s batch. Can you help with any answers? Is provision of storage room a benefit in kind? We are moving to new offices and will have a spare room. We could let it out, and get about £300 pcm, [...]

It’s been around 6 months since we started concentrating on developing the Payroll Help site from its roots in PayPerShop and we’ve seen the site grow from around 5000 unique visitors viewing 13000 a month, to a whopping 61,000 unique visitors viewing 110,000 pages, and somewhat dauntingly it’s still on the rise. We’ve had our [...]

More new speakers have been confirmed by The Learn Centre for the Annual Payroll and HR Conference being held in Stratford-on-Avon on March 2nd, 3rd and 4th. There are two excellent speakers from HMRC who will be presenting a Tax and National Insurance update: Phil Nilson, who is recognised widely in the payroll profession as [...]

Many years ago I researched and wrote about bulk scanning of documents that could be used as evidence in court.  There are British standards that must be met to prove that a scanned copy is identical to the original paper document.  It is interesting to find that HMRC is planning to make use of this [...]

Starting in March 2011 and continuing throughout the 2011/12 tax year, HMRC is phasing in the electronic scanning, processing and storage of correspondence.  Letters and documents will be scanned on receipt and assigned to the relevant caseworker electronically for handling.  As a result, they will be more readily accessible when customers/agents contact HMRC by telephone. [...]

The Scotland Bill makes provision for the introduction of different rates of income tax from those applicable in the rest of the UK.  The Bill defines the way in which the Scottish government will be able to set different rates of tax and also defines a “Scottish taxpayer”. The latest issue of the Pension Schemes [...]

HMRC reviews the published advisory fuel rates every six months.  The most recent changes were introduced from 1 December 2010.  In view of the increases in pump prices since December, HMRC has given notice that new advisory rates will be published shortly, to take effect from 1 March. Further information: Company cars – advisory fuel [...]

All of the key HMRC forms and publications for the 2011/12 tax year are now available to download from HMRC’s website, at the links below. Further information: Forms and publications for employers

Each week we receive a number of payroll questions on our forum, and here are this week’s batch. Can you help with any answers? Fit Notes I have been asked by a client today about Fit Notes. Her employee has given her a Fit Note saying she is unfit for work for the next four [...]

The Learn Centre’s Annual Payroll & HR Conference is almost upon us, and once again it will be gathering a range of experts (both old and new) under one roof. The conference has become respected as perhaps the ‘gold standard’ for payroll and HR conferences and remains popular and relevant despite the fact that it’s [...]

HMRC’s use use of technology and cost savings go hand-in-hand and the coming tax year end is no exception – no employer pack and no CD-ROM for the new tax year.  Instead?  An E55 letter. 2012 sees the end of contracting-out for money purchase pension schemes, but we now have details of the changes to [...]