Archive for January, 2012

Prime Minister David Cameron has conceded that the Regional Employer NICs Holiday for New Businesses scheme announced in the Government’s June 2010 Budget, has not had the expected take-up.  This scheme, available for the qualifying period 22 June 2010 to 05 September 2013 gives a Secondary NICs ‘holiday’ to new businesses which are set up [...]

The Learn Centre is focused on education and communication.  It is our business and both of these are essential in our day-to-day professional lives.  Also, increased and improved education and communication can reduce the pressures on both the payroll and HR departments. In this spirit, we are passing on information on the HMRC Website, designed [...]

HMRC have issued a reminder on their Website that electronic payments are due by the 22nd monthly following the end of the relevant month or quarter.  There is a dual purpose to this reminder: Firstly 22 January 2012 is a Sunday.  Therefore, as the remittance for Month 09 / Quarter 3 must be cleared funds [...]

The following is a selection of questions that have been posted to our Forum over the past week.  Can you contribute to any of the discussions?…………. I do not have the P45 or a Statement of Earnings from my last company.  I need this information for my tax return.  What is the alternative? If the [...]

Another new year. The same old thing for the next twelve months? How do you feel about last year? Was it good? Do you feel satisfied? Well, this is a time for resolutions, so why not make some positive ones? Actually January is a month when resolutions are made and then fade away, but why [...]

If an employee fails in some way to perform to a required standard you need to take prompt corrective action, and you will have a disciplinary process for doing so fairly and consistently. What you do depends upon whether you find the problem is one of the employee’s conduct or capability. In other words is [...]

Searching employees Are we entitled to search employees as they leave our premises? Reply If you wish to do this you must give prior warning to all employees and give a reason. Make clear that either you will search people at random and explain how they will be selected, or that you will search only [...]

Health and safety really has got a bad name. We seem so tied up with its strictures, some of which seem so ridiculous, that it is becoming a favourite topic of conversation, replacing the weather. Whose fault is this? Is it the Government or the European Union who pass the laws? Or is it the [...]

For Christmas you were given this problem: A baron builds a castle on a square island and surrounds the island with a moat that in turn forms a square. The moat is 10 metres wide. An enemy decides to attack the castle by crossing the moat on long strengthened planks. Unfortunately when they arrive they [...]

Happy New Year to all our readers. New Year is, traditionally, a time for resolutions and promises and our chance to take a look at the year ahead and see what we want to achieve. In payroll, we have to look at a mix of what we would like to achieve with what we need [...]

Section 34 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 and Article 33 of the Employment Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 provide for an increase or decrease in the following statutory limits each year according to the year-on-year change in the Retail Price Index (RPI) at the previous September. The Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2011 [...]

On 26 November 2008, the Pensions Bill was granted the necessary Royal Assent to form the Pensions Act 2008.  This provided the legislative framework, , i.e. the starting point for the introduction of auto-enrolment – the automatic enrolment of qualifying workers into compulsory employer pension schemes.  From October 2012, the largest employers with over 3,000 employees [...]

These are two terms which require a brief recap: The Earnings Trigger is the level of earnings, at which, when reached by the employee, the employer is obliged to consider auto-enrolment into a qualifying pension scheme The Qualifying Earnings Band is the band of earnings on which the employee and employer will pay pension contributions [...]

As discussed briefly above, auto-enrolment is required when jobholders’ earnings reach the Earnings Trigger.  One issue that has been uppermost in professionals’ minds has been the issue of workers with fluctuating earnings.  The employee is usually earning below the trigger, however, for one reason or another, exceeds it in one week or month – for [...]

We have published this information before; however, the start of 2012 is a good time to repeat this as a reminder.  Contracting-out of the State Second Pension (S2P) on a DC basis will be abolished from 06 April 2012.  Contracting-out of the State scheme on a Salary-Related basis (COSR) is not affected.  This has the [...]

The Double Taxation Convention between the UK and Hungary entered into force on 28 December 2011.  This is effective in Hungary for 01/01/12.  In the UK, it is effective: 01/01/12 for taxes withheld at source 01/04/12 for Corporation Tax, and 06/06/12 for Income and Capital Gains Tax Further Information HMRC – Double Taxation Agreement Hungary

For the tax year 2011/12, HMRC changed the tax code that applied to payments made to employees where the P45 had been issued – ‘payments after leaving’.  From this tax year, we have had to make these payments against tax code 0T on a non-cumulative basis rather than the previous codeBR.  This was with the [...]

Before Christmas, we started to look at the information that RTI would require us to submit as and when we pay our employees.  We have been side-tracked a little this week by an important issue that will involve a change to the way that we work – the issue of processing the P45 and P46 [...]

The following is a selection of questions that have been posted to our Forum over the past week.  Can you contribute to any of the discussions?…………. Is there anything to say that an employee cannot start the maternity leave period after the date that the baby is expected? How does the employee ‘make good’ the [...]