Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
[email protected] 0345 9390019Aug 2013
19
It has been confirmed that the new NMW rates which take effect from 1st October 2013 will be as follows:
Jul 2013
18
Some Brightpay advise on your First Quarterly PAYE Payment which is due 19/22 July 2013
Paying by Cheque:The cheque must be received by last working day (excluding weekends and bank holidays) on or before 19th July for 1st PAYE Quarter.
Electronically: Payment must have cleared HMRC bank account by last working day (excluding weekend and bank holidays) on or before 22nd July.
Amount Payable:
Amount payable is the total amount on an employer’s FPS and EPS for the quarter including any corrections or adjustments submitted on or before 19th of July 2013.
Any amended or corrected FPS and EPS received after 19th July (1st Quarter) will be taken into account in calculating your payment for Quarter 2.
You should also use an EPS to tell HMRC if you have no FPS to send as, without it, HMRC will instead calculate what they believe is due and expect you to pay this in full.
Checking your 2013/14 PAYE position:
An employer can use the HMRC online PAYE Liabilities & Payments Viewer (also known as the Business Tax Dashboard) to confirm the real time submissions that HMRC have received and to see both what the employer owes and what they have paid.
Please be aware that the Viewer might not show the most up-to-date position for:
Amount employer owes to HMRC - the Viewer’s ‘Amount due in period’ figure is updated on the 6th and 20th of each month, based on all submissions received to those dates. Any submissions made between these dates will not be reflected until the next update.
What an employer has paid HMRC – there is a slight delay in the payment information reaching the Viewer. Any very recent payments an employer has made may not be shown.
Please note that, even if the employer is a quarterly payer, HMRC will still raise monthly charges. The charges will either be based on the reports the employer has submitted, or where HMRC have estimated what the employer owes. These charges will be reflected on the Viewer, and will be shown as outstanding even if they are not yet due for payment.
Check out your HMRC Payments Record in Brightpay.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Apr 2013
22
HMRC has been forced to issue a clarification about national insurance number verification requests after being contacted by worried employers trying to meet the Real Time Information (RTI) requirements.
The employers have been receiving rejections in response to their requests. This, says HMRC, is correct. They are being rejected because the employers are sending their requests in before they have made their first full payment submission (FPS).
“You cannot send a national insurance number verification request (NVR) until you have started to send PAYE information in real time,” HMRC advises. “Wait two weeks after sending your first FPS before sending an NVR.”
It points employers to its guidance, Making Sure You Use the Correct National Insurance Number
HMRC also says that it has been receiving phone calls from employees trying to find out what their NI number is after being told by their employer that they must have one for when the employer submits the RTI returns.
Although HMRC does want employers to provide correct NI numbers in their PAYE submissions, it stresses that there will be occasions when an NI number is not available. For example, the employee will not have been allocated one if they are under 16 years old.
Again, it points employers towards the NI guidance to make it clear that they should leave the NI number field blank and not be tempted to fill it in with a dummy or incorrect number.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Apr 2013
17
The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.
"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.
"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.
"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."
Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.
"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.
"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.
"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.
"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."
The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.
"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.
"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.
"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."
Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.
"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.
"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.
"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.
"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."
The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.
"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.
"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.
"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."
Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.
"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.
"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.
"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.
"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Apr 2013
4
HMRC has amended its guidance on the starter process to help increase accuracy for individuals with a P45 and more than one job. In such cases, instead of selecting statement C and operating code BR, the employer should select statement B and operate the tax code on the P45 – unless the tax code on the P45 is BR, 0T or D prefix – in which case statement C would still apply.
Individuals without a P45 or with an old P45 will continue to complete the starter declaration to confirm their employment situation. The full guidance on the starter process will be updated and available from 6 April 2013 here.
Please be aware the guidance linked above will not be updated to reflect this change until 6 April 2013. HMRC acknowledges that the starter process guidance has gone through several iterations and for 2013-14 says it will accept if an employer’s payroll does not follow this new process.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Jan 2013
17
RTI may seem pretty scary but BrightPay will look after all the heavy lifting. We hope that you will be pleasantly surprised at just how easy and unintrusive you will find the whole RTI experience.
There are one or two things you need to consider in preparation for RTI.
Your first RTI submission, which will occur on or before your first payday in 2013-14 (but not before 6th April 2013) is known as your "first full payment submission" or first FPS for short. BrightPay, as with all RTI submissions, will prepare and submit this first FPS automatically for you, with your OK of course. The difference between the first FPS and subsequent FPS submissions is that the first FPS will include details of all employees whether or not they were included in your first payroll run e.g. if you operate both weekly and monthly payrolls for the same company, the first FPS, triggered by the first weekly payroll run, will include details of all your monthly paid employees (even though they will have zero in all the pay and tax fields). Subsequent FPS submissions will only include details for employees actually paid in the applicable payroll run.
Therefore it is important that all individuals currently in your employment are included in BrightPay before the first RTI submission is made.
Another thing to bear in mind is that each RTI submission will need to include information for temporary and casual workers and employees paid below the National Insurance Lower Earnings Limit. So, even though there are no deductions made from these individuals, they now need to be accounted for through BrightPay.
Finally, you will need to include new information in your payroll records, the main one being hours worked. This is not the actual number of hours but, instead, an applicable scale (a) Up to 15.99 hours per week (b) 16-29.99 hours per week or (c) 30 hours or more per week. For employees who are paid using an hourly rate, BrightPay will allocate this scale automatically. However, for employees paid a set amount each week or month, you will need to review the default scale which is set at (c) above.
One other new item is the "Irregular Employment Pattern Indicator" e.g. casual or seasonal employees (where the employment contract continues) or where employee will not be paid for at least a further 3 months but is still regarded as an employee e.g. maternity
If you are running a payroll bureau service, you need to consider procedural changes to ensure that the above issues are covered. Make sure that these changes are put in place well in advance of the 6th April.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Oct 2012
28
One of the biggest concerns for payroll operators with RTI is "What happens if the RTI submission is wrong?".
The regulations state that the RTI file must be transmitted before or at the time of the payroll period update. With most payroll software the RTI transmission and the payroll period update will be part of the one process. However, it can be fairly common for the update to occur and then the operator realises that something was missed, like an overtime amount or some promised bonus. At present (prior to RTI), all the operator has to do is reverse or correct what they have just processed. But how would RTI deal with this?
This very scenario was one of the main issues brought up by us and other payroll software developers during the various RTI workshops organised by HMRC. It would be unworkable if there was some complicated resubmission process. Also, the periodic payroll processing would become very stressful if the implication of getting it wrong every now and again was a lot more work.
HMRC took this on board and conceded that once the year to date figures in the next RTI submission were correct, then the employer's obligations have been met. There is also a procedure in place if an incorrect RTI submission is made for a final pay period (e.g. week 52 or month 12).
The year to date or cumulative amounts are the most important items in the RTI submission with relatively minor importance being placed on the pay or tax figures for a particular pay period.
So, all of you payroll operators can relax. You are allowed to be human now and again!
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Oct 2012
10
Even if you have not yet enrolled in the RTI scheme or you have not yet received notice of the implementation date for RTI into your organisation, as an employer, enrolment is inevitable.
The earlier you start to prepare for RTI, the smoother the implementation of the new scheme will be on you and your employees.
As an employer it is important that you are prepared. There are steps and procedures that you can implement now in order to prepare.
Audit the data held for all current employees ensuring it complies with the HMRC FPS submission requirement. If this data is incomplete, or requires verification, then initiate this process now eliminating any obstacles in good time before your first FPS submission. This will ensure the majority of data entry is complete prior to implementation date also. Include data capture requests with payslips to ensure employees read the request.
Communicate with employees advising them why it is vital for the personal information held on file to be accurate and complete. Implement procedures to facilitate two way communication between employees and managers, to answer any queries your employees may have and to facilitate the advising of changes to personal information.
Prepare new employee data request forms to be completed upon commencement of employment and prior to the first payment to the employee. This should encompass all the information HRMC requires you to hold for RTI purposes. Implement this procedure now to identify common errors, issues or shortfall in communication and methods to improve this process.
Develop an in-house training programme to:
Prepare in-house procedures to ensure periodical payroll data is complete and accurate prior to signing off the periodical payroll using reports produced from your payroll software. Identify the data checks or audit procedures that can be made to eliminate errors and the associated reports that your payroll software may be able to produce or allow you to customise to complete this task.
Having a series of control procedures in place will eliminate errors in submission to HMRC under the RTI scheme. The earlier these are implemented the sooner they will become an integral part of the payroll process.
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Oct 2012
2
The 2011-12 Employer Annual Returns (P35 and P14s) were due by 19 May 2012. These returns are now over 4 months late and HMRC has started to send penalty notices if their records indicate that they have not yet received your return.
The penalty will be £100 per 50 employees for each month the return is outstanding, from 20 May 2012 to 19 September 2012. So an employer with 50 or less employees will receive a £400 penalty.
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
Sep 2012
18
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced that the rates of national minimum wage applicable to pay reference periods starting on or after 1 October 2012 will be as follows:
From the same date, the daily accommodation offset rate will increase from the current £4.73 to £4.82.
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
[email protected] 0345 9390019