Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
[email protected] 0345 9390019Apr 2015
24
A complete list of all tax changes that took place on April 6 has been published on the gov.uk website.
Acting as a useful checklist, the following tax changes came into effect on Monday 6 April 2015:
- Individuals over the age of 55 have flexible access to their defined contribution pension savings
- The Income Tax Personal Allowance increases to £10,600
- The higher rate income tax threshold increases to £42,385
- The new Marriage Allowance comes into effect
- The starting rate of savings income tax reduces from 10% to 0% for savings up to £5,000
- The cash ISA limit increases to £15,240
- Child Trust Funds can now be transferred into Junior ISAs
- Spouses can now inherit their deceased partner’s ISAbenefits
- If an individual dies before the age of 75, they can now pass on their unused defined contribution pension savings free of income tax
- Beneficiaries of individuals who die under the age of 75 with a joint life or guaranteed term annuity can now receive any future payments from such policies free of income tax
- Employers will no longer have to pay employer NICs for employees under the age of 21
- Class 2 NICs for the self-employed can now be collected through Self-Assessment
- The Employment Allowance extends to include people employing care and support workers to look after themselves or family members
- A new annual remittance basis charge of £90,000 is introduced for non-domiciled individuals who have been resident in the UK in at least 17 of the last 20 years, and the charge paid by non-domiciled individuals who have been resident in the UK in at least 12 of the last 14 years has increased from £50,000 to £60,000
- Non-UK resident individuals, trusts, personal representatives and narrowly controlled companies are now subject to Capital Gains Tax on gains accruing on the disposal of UK residential property
- Capital Gains Tax annual exemption amount has increased to £11,100
- The Capital Gains Tax charge on disposals of properties liable to ATED extends to cover residential properties worth £1 million – £2 million
- The requirement that 70% of Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme money must be spent before EIS or VCT funding can be raised is removed
- The Fuel Benefit Charge multiplier for both cars and vans increases by RPI
- The Van Benefit Charge increases by RPI – in 2015-16 the Van Benefit Charge rate paid by zero emission vans is 20% of the rate paid by conventionally fuelled vans
- Tax Credit payments are stopped in-year where, due to a change in circumstances, a claimant has already received their full annual entitlement
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tax-changes-coming-into-effect-6-april-2015
Apr 2015
16
With effect from 6th April 2015, the Employment Allowance has now been extended to include individuals who employ personal carers and support workers. Such individuals who were previously excluded from claiming the allowance in tax year 2014-15, will now be entitled to deduct up to £2,000 per annum from their liability to pay secondary Class 1 Employer National Insurance contributions (NICs).
The new measure is intended to support individuals who need to purchase care for themselves or others.
To check eligibility and for further information about the Employment Allowance, simply go to Employment Allowance Eligibility.
Apr 2015
8
Shared parental leave has now officially come into effect, meaning parents whose babies are born, or whose children are adopted, on or after 5th April 2015 will now be able to share a 50-week pot of leave.
285,000 working couples a year are expected to be eligible for shared parental leave, according to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
How does it work?
· Eligible couples will be able to share parental leave if the mother opts to end her maternity leave and pay early
· Both parents can be off work at the same time or can take turns to take time off to look after the child.
· The leave can be taken in discontinuous blocks if required and each parent is permitted to submit three separate notices to book this
Statutory shared parental pay will be paid at the rate of £139.58 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower
Who is eligible?
To qualify for Statutory Shared Parental Pay, one parent must be an employee and must pass the continuity of employment test (they must have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks at the end of the 15th week before the week in which the child arrives), whilst the other must meet the employment and earnings test (must have worked for at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks leading up to the due date and have earned above the maternity allowance threshold of £30 week in 13 of those weeks).
Eligibility can be checked using GOV.UK’s quick and easy online tool.
BrightPay 2015/16 has full support for Shared Parental Leave and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). For assistance with recording shared parental leave and processing ShPP in BrightPay, please view our dedicated support topic on Statutory Shared Parental Pay.
Apr 2015
7
Employers are not to be issued automatic penalties for late submissions of up to 3 days .
HMRC have announced that they will not penalise employers for filing delays of up to 3 days. They have decided that late payment fees will continue to be risk assessed rather than automatic.
It is important to note that this does not mean that there is any change to the deadlines. FPS submissions must still be submitted on or before the payment date.
Any employer that was issued a late filing penalty between 6 October 2014 and 5 January 2015, and they were less than three days late can appeal online against the penalty.
Any employer with fewer than 50 employees are reminded that PAYE late filing penalties will apply to them from the 6th of March.
HMRC have advised that they will review the operation of the changes to the PAYE penalties by the 5th of April 2016.
Apr 2015
6
Monday 6 April 02:00 – 18:00
Due to a scheduled upgrade you will experience a delay in receiving your online acknowledgement to PAYE End of Year submissions made using HMRC and commercial software between 02:00 and 18:00 on Monday 6 April. Your acknowledgement will be sent once the service is restored. Please do not attempt to resubmit your submission. HMRC apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.
Mar 2015
16
HMRC says payroll managers must appeal disputed charges as soon as they receive them and has outlined a common reason they may occur.
Addressing delegates at Ceridian’s annual conference last week, Phil Nilson, from HMRC’s customer and stakeholder engagement team, explained that disputed charges may occur due to a misunderstanding by payroll managers.
He said: “We used to reconcile annually and you used to send us money during the year. You didn’t send any information relating to that money until the end of the year when you submitted your P14s and P35. Only at that point could we start reconciling the money with the information.
“Now, thanks to RTI we are doing that on a monthly basis, we are doing it tax month by tax month.
“Using tax month one as an examples from 6th April to 5th May, HMRC looks at all the Full Payment Submissions (FPS) you have sent in month one on either the 6th, 7th or 8th of May, and then starts the reconciliation process to try to determine the charge that is due.
“Once you’ve sent your FPSs, in an ideal world, they will be visible to you from the 12th of the following month on your dashboard. So in the example used that would be from the 12th of May. So, theoretically, you would send in your FPSs and then by the 12th of May you could go online and could see what we think is due from you.
“But, sometimes things come in late and you may need to send information about payments beyond the end of the tax month, but which relate to the earlier tax month.
“This is vital. If an FPS comes in between the 6th and 19th of May you can put it back into tax month one, where it should be, and the charge will be adjusted accordingly. However, if that FPS comes in after the 19th of the following tax month it won’t go into the dashboard for that month, of tax month one in this case, because the 19th is the cut-off date – the date we want the payment in.
“That may affect your view of what you think is due and we think is due.
“By looking at FPSs it gives us the total amount that is due – but to be taken away from that is anything you want to claw back by way of the Employer Payment Summary (EPS), that should be submitted by the 19th of the following month. So, for tax month one, that will be the 19th of May. In terms of looking at your online account, if you sent that EPS before the 12th of May it will be reflected by the 14th – you will see it within two days.
“I hope that helps you get a better understanding of what we do.”
Article taken from www.payrollworld.com
Mar 2015
13
Every employer in the UK will have to enrol their employees into a pension scheme and they must contribute towards that pension. This process is called Auto Enrolment. Employers will need to prepare for their new Auto Enrolment duties and responsibilities or face hefty fines. There is a lot of uncertainty, ambiguity and doubt surrounding Auto Enrolment for employers.
However, there is a clear opportunity for bookkeepers, accountants and payroll bureaus to capitalise on these new obligations for their clients. Contrary to popular belief, confusion isn't a bad thing. In fact, confusion can work to your advantage. It can be a platform for payroll providers to demonstrate their automatic enrolment expertise and knowledge to their clients. This knowledge will position you as a credible and reliable authority on employer responsibilities.
Opportunity Knocking
Pension schemes will become a part of day to day life for each and every employer in the UK. Thousands of employers will begin to look to auto enrolment experts for advice, counsel and an easy solution. Employers that previously did their payroll in house may look to outsource this role to a payroll and auto enrolment expert. Payroll providers will be able to help them grasp the implications for their business and prepare them for their automatic enrolment responsibilities.
Payroll providers who offer auto enrolment services will naturally gain a competitive advantage, win new business and ultimately increase profits. According to The Pensions Regulator research 78% of small businesses will rely on their advisors for help, advice and support.
Win New Clients
Presumably you have worked hard to win and gain new clients. But now you've got those customers, how do you keep them? The downfall for many bureaus is that they don't know how to keep customers. Time and money goes into acquiring new customers and the last thing you want is to see them sneaking out the back door.
Keeping customers makes good business sense but it's not always easy. Being open for Auto enrolment business will play an important role in customer retention over the next few years. This will give payroll providers an edge over other bureaus who are shying away from AE and will provide the capacity to generate greater value for their clients.
There is a clear opportunity to financially benefit from AE by offering to handle all auto enrolment duties for your clients. Your services can lighten the load for employers. There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it’s up to you to grab it with both hands.
BrightPay has you covered!
To take advantage of this business opportunity, bureaus need to have a payroll solution that can automate the AE tasks. BrightPay is a payroll solution that has automatic enrolment process driven automation included for free. This simple solution handles the complex process of auto enrolment with ease. It's easy with BrightPay, simply enter your staging date and BrightPay will automatically let you know what you need to do to enrol the employees.
BrightPay automates the employee assessment for you by accessing each employees PAYE information and informing you what your duties are for each employee. It further can produce personalised employee communication based on the employee's work status which can be printed or emailed. Additionally, postponement, refunds, opt-out, opt-ins and required reporting come as standard. BrightPay is integrated with a number of AE pension providers.
What’s more is there are no additional costs for automatic enrolment functionality and support is completely free. Our 60 day trial will prove how easy it really is.
To arrange a demo click here
Feb 2015
28
Fit for Work provides people on sick leave with help to return to work by providing an occupational health assessment when they have been, or are expected to be, off work for 4 weeks. After the assessment, which GPs have been told should be the default option after four weeks’ sickness; they will receive a return-to-work plan with recommendations to help them get back to work more quickly. a return to work plan (RtW) can be accepted as evidence for payment of SSP in the same way as a fit note.
Employers, even those without HR and occupational health teams in-house can also ask for an assessment if the GP has not done so. All referrals will be based on the informed consent of the employee. The government has set out the following deadlines for the referral service which has yet to go live:
- the first assessment will be within two working days of receipt of referral
- if the employee is not expected to return to work, a review date will be set as part of the case management
- further (phone) assessment will take place within two working days
- face to face assessment (either initial or further) will take place within five working days
- the return to work plan is sent to the employee and, subject to consent, to the employer and GP within two working days (the employer may be contacted to develop the plan)
- out of hours queries to the advice service are responded to within one working day of receipt
A tax exemption of up to £500 a year per employee on medical treatments recommended by Fit for Work or an employer-arranged occupational health service was also introduced from 1st January 2015
Feb 2015
26
There are just six weeks to go until mothers and fathers with babies due on or after 5 April 2015 can start sharing up to 50 weeks of parental leave.
285,000 working couples a year are expected to be eligible for Shared Parental Leave (SPL), with parents giving their employers 8 weeks’ notice of the pattern of leave they intend to take.
To help parents understand their rights and responsibilities, BIS and Acas have shared the following tips when considering Shared Parental Leave:
Feb 2015
24
HMRC have this week released more details on how the Marriage Allowance (previously referred to as Transferable Allowances for Married Couples and Civil Partners) will operate from April 2015. The allowance means a spouse or civil partner who does not pay tax, or does not pay tax above the basic rate of income tax, can transfer up to £1,060 of their personal tax-free allowance to a spouse or civil partner, as long as the recipient of the transfer does not pay more than the basic rate of income tax. This could represent a saving of up to £212 per year for eligible couples.
Registering for marriage allowance is simple and quick – and it is all done at www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance. There’s guidance for couples to check their eligibility for the new allowance, and registration only takes about three minutes. From April, HMRC will begin inviting those customers who have registered their interest to be among the first to apply using the new online service. Customers who choose not to register early, however, will not lose out. Instead, they will be able to make an application later in the 2015-16 tax year and still receive the full annual allowance.
To support the change, both the transferor and recipient’s tax codes will be amended. This will in turn introduce two new tax code suffixes as follows:
• M will be used for the spouse/civil partner receiving the transferred allowance
• N will be used for the spouse/civil partner transferring the allowance
These new tax suffixes will not be used on tax codes prior to April 2015, but will be used on P6 coding notices from April and, in due course, P9 and P9X uprating notices.
For more information on the above, HMRC’s announcement ‘Registration opens for new married couples tax break’ can be viewed at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/announcements?departments%5B%5D=hm-revenue-customs.
Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
[email protected] 0345 9390019