A further consultation taking place this summer is into the simplification of the tax and national insurance treatment of termination payments. There is a widespread but mistaken belief amongst employees and employers that the first £30,000 of any pay-off is not subject to income tax and NICs. This often leads to difficulties when employees discover … Continued
Free breakfast seminar on Pension Reform & Auto Enrolment and Employment Law Updates
Join us for this free seminar to learn about your legal obligations with regards to the new Pension Reforms by listening to our expert speakers. Date Wednesday 16 September 2015 Venue Marriott Hotel 1 Queen Square Liverpool L1 1RH Time Breakfast & Registration – 9am to 9.30am Event – 9.30am to 11.15am Coffee & Close … Continued
Small firms gear up for auto-enrolment
Small businesses employing 40-49 workers will begin complying with their auto-enrolment duties from 1 August. The dates when businesses begin complying with auto-enrolment are known as staging dates. From this date employers are required to have enrolled employees onto a workplace pension scheme, written to staff members and signed the declaration of compliance. The staging … Continued
Flexible working not advertised during recruitment
Employers could be missing out on top talent by not advertising flexible working arrangements during recruitment, a report by Timewise has suggested. The jobs board found that 6% of all jobs offering a salary between £20,000 and £29,999 advertise flexible working arrangements during recruitment. Higher salaried jobs were less likely to offer flexible work: 3% … Continued
New holiday pay rules come into effect
Employers will need to account for overtime when calculating holiday pay from 1 July 2015. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled in November 2014 that employers must factor in overtime, commissions and bonuses when making holiday pay calculations, instead of only taking basic pay into account. Holiday pay for employees who receive irregular remuneration will … Continued
Considering giving shares in your company to employees?
More and more companies now give their employees the opportunity to acquire company shares. If correctly structured, this can be a very tax efficient way of attracting and retaining staff, as they are able to share in the success of the company. However, if you get things wrong there can be significant tax charges on … Continued
Small Business challenge to deliver new workplace pensions
From today, workforces with fewer than 30 employees will start to be phased into the Government’s automatic enrolment scheme, which was set up amid fears that people are living for longer but are not putting enough money aside for their old age. Around 14,000 small and micro businesses will be reaching their staging dates to … Continued
Auto-enrolment exemptions introduced
Employers will no longer need to auto-enrol employees in certain circumstances after regulatory changes were introduced in April 2015. From 1 April 2015, the following types of employee will not need to be auto-enrolled: individuals who are leaving employment those who cancel scheme membership before auto-enrolment employees whose existing pension savings have tax-protected status. The … Continued
Pension schemes new SORP
Pension schemes will have to boost transparency and detail under reporting requirements in the revised statement of recommended practice by the Pensions Research Accountants Group, which comes into force next year. Scheme trustees, asset managers and those responsible for preparing accounts will be tasked with putting systems in place to enhance the relevance and transparency … Continued
Automatic RTI penalties: HMRC soften plans
HMRC have recently advised that the automatic penalties for late PAYE payments that were due to start from 6 April 2015 will now be risk-assessed. HMRC have confirmed that automatic penalties for filing RTI submissions late will start from 6 April 2015, but there is to be a new three –day concession for those who … Continued