Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
hellobrightpayuk@brightsg.com 0345 9390019Aug 2013
27
BrightPay has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 'payroll software product' category for the Payroll World Awards 2013! The full list of finalists will be publicised on the Payroll World Awards website, via email and in the magazine on the 30 August.
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks
BrightPay – Payroll Software
Aug 2013
22
We'd greatly appreciate your time (a few minutes!) to share your feedback on BrightPay in the AccountingWEB Software Satisfaction Awards Survey.
As well as helping us to improve BrightPay, your feedback could also enable us to become one of the lucky few shortlisted for a prestigious AccountingWEB Software Satisfaction Award!
AccountingWEB are offering those that participate in the survey the chance to win a top prize of £1,000 in Amazon vouchers or one of five £100 Amazon vouchers.
Aug 2013
22
Following a judging which took place on Friday 16 August 2013, we are delighted to announce that CIPP have short-listed BrightPay for the CIPP’s payroll and pensions excellence awards.
BrightPay has been shortlisted in the "Payroll product of the year" category.
The winner will be announced on 26th September 2013.
Aug 2013
19
It has been confirmed that the new NMW rates which take effect from 1st October 2013 will be as follows:
Aug 2013
14
HMRC has published a message on their website regarding RTI reconciliation issues.
"We have received feedback that some PAYE schemes have experienced difficulties in reconciling the difference between:
· the tax we say is due, and
· the tax they think is due
We have set up a dedicated team to identify the cause of these discrepancies.
The team is working with a number of PAYE schemes to work through their examples to examine what is causing these discrepancies, and then to resolve them.
This will also enable us to:· understand the issue in greater depth, and · take the steps necessary to prevent them arising in the first place."
Aug 2013
9
A “quirk” in the tax system that occurs once every 20 years has resulted in Asda staff owing more than £12m in outstanding tax to HMRC.
The supermarket’s 170,000 employees were affected by the payroll anomaly that occurs for companies with four-weekly payroll systems, where 14 payments are made in a tax year rather than the usual 13. Most of the employees were paid 14 times between 6th April 2012 and 5th April 2013 – the 2012/13 tax year – rather than the usual 13 times.
The payroll provider, said: “This is an anomaly within HMRC and there is no means of getting round it by payroll providers.”
Following the incident HMRC posted advice on its website on “dealing with ‘week 53’ payments”. When completing a Full Payment Submission it says: “Do not change the final tax code to week 1 if the only reason you have used week 1 is to calculate a payment on week 53."
Aug 2013
8
Please use the following points as a checklist to ensure that you have covered all aspects before sending in your company’s CIS repayment claim to HMRC. These are the top issues that are likely to affect how quickly we can process the claim.
Please send your claims to:
PAYE Employer Office
Room BP4009
Park View
NEWCASTLE
NE98 1ZZ
1. Ensure the company’s Agent is authorized specifically for PAYE to act on its behalf for CIS repayments. Form 64-8 is used for this purpose and can be downloaded from the HMRC website here. Please send it to:
HM Revenue & Customs Central Agent Authorisation Team Longbenton Newcastle upon Tyne NE98 1ZZ
Further information on authorization can be found here.
2. Double-check that the Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) and the company subcontractor’s name are correct on all documents.
3. Check that all the company’s Payment and Deduction Statements that HMRC have requested to process the claim are sent and that they are for the correct period (the tax year runs from 6 April in one year to 5 April the following year).
4. If the company was incorporated during the year, please ensure that its claim for repayment is only for deductions taken from the company’s payments and not any for periods before incorporation.
5. Check that the CIS deductions taken from the company’s subcontractors are correct and have been reported correctly on the monthly returns.
6. Check that the company has no outstanding returns (CIS300) in its capacity as a contractor within CIS.
7. Ensure that form P35 - or the final Employer Payment Summary (EPS) under Real Time Information (RTI), showing CIS deductions taken from the company’s payments, has already been submitted.
8. Submit any information requested within the timescale specified by HMRC, such as following receipt of a ‘CIS suffered letter’ and that you have included everything that HMRC has requested.
9. Where there are overpayments that do not relate to CIS, please verify how these have arisen by providing supporting documentary evidence to HMRC along with the company’s claim for repayment.
10. Where the company has ceased trading, please remember to send in all outstanding returns for the subcontractors.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Aug 2013
2
Further to our Blog of 4th July HMRC have now confirmed that they have a fix in place to deal with the requests they have received from employers since April 2013 requesting to change their PAYE scheme to annual.
All requests that have been made since April will be accepted and those schemes changed to annual schemes. Employers will NOT be notified when that change has been made.
An annual scheme must meet the following criteria:
If you are making an annual payment to an employee using BrightPay remember to tell BrightPay the payment frequency for the FPS is annually, if you have any queries please phone the BrightPay Support Team.
When a business is registered as an annual scheme, the employer is not required to submit an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) for the 11 months of the tax year where no payments are made to the employees.
If an employer that is registered as an annual scheme pays an employee or employees and submits a Full Payment Submission (FPS) for more than a single month in the year HMRC will automatically cancel the annual payer status for that year and the following years and will write to the employer to advise them of same.
Full details can be found on the HMRC Website, http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/annual-schemes.htm
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Jul 2013
30
Further to our Blog of 22nd July – HMRC have now revised the message they issued recently about the need for accurate reporting of hours worked.
The original message suggested that employers should record the actual hours worked by employees, however this has now been clarified to indicate that it is the number of hours normally worked. HMRC go on to explain that option D should only be selected if the employee does not have a regular pattern of employment or the payment relates to an occupational pension or annuity. Otherwise, hours worked should be recorded as follows:
A Up to 15.99 hours
B 16 to 29.99 hours
C 30 hours or more
If you have selected 'D other' in earlier submissions but should instead have selected one of the other options, you do not need to resubmit an earlier Full Payment Submission (FPS). Instead, please ensure that you report the correct hours on your next FPS.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Jul 2013
26
2015 could see fathers in the UK taking as much as 50 weeks’ parentalleave. It could also radically change the career paths of mothers and return these skilled resources to the economy more quickly. But how will it work in practice? The “additional paternity leave” regime is effective for children due on or after 3 April 2011. Here, if a mother returns to work before the end of her 52-week statutory maternity leave period, the father/her partner is entitled to use the remaining unused portion of her maternity leave. If the mother has returned to work before the end of the 39-week paid statutory maternity leave period, the father/mother’s partner is also entitled to the remaining portion of unclaimed statutory maternity pay.
Existing:
The two main conditions attached to the existing additional paternity leave regime are that: (1) the father/mother’s partner is only entitled to additional paternity leave if the mother has returned to work; and (2) the period of additional paternity leave cannot begin any earlier than 20 weeks from the date of the child’s birth or placement for adoption.
Proposed New Regime
The proposed shared parental leave regime will maintain the two-week compulsory maternity leave period for the mother immediately following the child’s birth or placement for adoption
After initial 2 week period: both parents will be entitled to share the remaining 50 weeks’ parental leave in any way they choose. This means both parents can take their joint parental leave entitlement either concurrently or consecutively, by alternating in periods of no less than one week at a time. The total number of weeks taken by both parents in aggregate must not exceed 52 (including the mother’s compulsory two weeks). This new regime will therefore permit mothers to return to work immediately after the initial compulsory two-week period, allowing the father/mother’s partner to take the whole of the remaining 50 weeks.
Payment - only the first 39 weeks of parental leave will be paid. The existing minimum two weeks’ statutory paid paternity leave system will continue to operate as before. The current additional paternity leave regime will be abolished.
How will this affect your business?
Firstly, employees will not be required to provide their employers with full details of their plans regarding the whole parental leave period from the outset.
8 Weeks Notice: They will be required to give employers 8 week’s notice of their intention to end the maternity leave and commence the shared parental leave, and the separate employers of both parents must then agree with their respective employees to the pattern of parental leave.
No Limit - there is no limit to the number of times parents can alternate between weeks of parental leave and work, which can result in their employers receiving notice of multiple proposed periods of leave in an ad hoc and piecemeal fashion.
The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) envisages that the new system will require a “light touch” administrative approach but employers have expressed disquiet about the anticipated managerial burden of implementing the new policy. For example, although BIS has stated it does not expect that each parent’s respective employer will need to contact the other in order to verify their employees’ leave entitlements, it is difficult to see how this can otherwise be achieved without risking errors or even employee fraud.
The increased flexibility for parents also means that employers may find themselves obliged to hire short-term replacements for these employees or share the burden of additional work amongst other employees.
Brightpay.co.uk will issue updates on any changes in relation to this new law.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
hellobrightpayuk@brightsg.com 0345 9390019