Guidance
Link to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Portal
Claim for your employees’ wages through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Check which employees you can put on furlough to use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Find examples to help you calculate your employees’ wages
Calculate how much you can claim using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Check if your employer could use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Steps to take before calculating your claim using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Reporting employees’ wages to HMRC when you’ve claimed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
If you’ve claimed too much or not enough from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Check which expenses are taxable if your employee works from home due to Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Coronavirus (COVID-19): advice for employers and employees (ACAS)
ACAS guidance on holiday pay
The Statutory Residence Test and Coronavirus – there has been a relaxation in day counting for expats stranded in the UK
Coronavirus (COVID-19): right to work checks
Work out your employee’s Statutory Sick Pay – there is no mention of a reclaim scheme or how to define 250 employees. PIW needs to be formed for SSP to kick in from day one
Coronavirus: driver cpc requirement temporary changes – relaxation on drivers and certification if you are an organisation using HGV drivers
Claim back Statutory Sick Pay paid to employees due to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
Statutory Sick Pay: tables for linking Periods of Incapacity for Work
Coronavirus guidance – Low Income Tax Reform Group’s summary of benefits’ support for employees
Make benefit debt deductions from an employee’s pay – this does not relate to housing benefit. DEAs which would need to be cancelled with a statement from local authorities rather than DWP.
Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave: employer guide – advanced funding seems to be a completely different mechanism to all other statutory payments, and the exclusion form is online only which will be of no use to employers or agents. You can access the claim form here, the calculator here and entitlement tables here.
COVID-19 Use of Reservists – Information for Employers (FAQs) – information on pay and benefits, financial support for employers and the ability to decline a call up for key workers
Claiming Child Benefit – useful if you’re a new parent and can’t register the birth
Get an isolation note – if an employee does not have an email address, they can have the note sent to a trusted family member or friend, or directly to their employer. The service can also be used to generate an isolation note on behalf of someone else.
Automatic enrolment and pension contributions: COVID-19 guidance for employers
Salary sacrifice for employers – regards COVID-19 as a lifestyle event
The calculator has been updated for variable pay employees
Statutory Adoption Pay: employee circumstances that affect payment
Statutory Adoption Pay: manually calculate your employee’s payments
Manually calculate your employee’s Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay
Employee circumstances that affect payment of Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay
Statutory Paternity Pay: manually calculate your employee’s payments
Statutory Paternity Pay: employee circumstances that affect payment
Work out your employee’s payments for Statutory Maternity Pay
Statutory Maternity Pay: employee circumstances that affect payment
2020 to 2021: Employer further guide to PAYE and National Insurance contributions
Providing apprenticeships during the Coronavirus outbreak
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
ACAS Working from home guidance
Holiday entitlement and pay during Covid-19
Employee equipment reimbursements
Automatic enrolment and DC pension contributions: COVID-19 guidance for employers
Factsheets
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme Factsheet
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – receiving grants you were not entitled to Factsheet
Policy papers
Changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
COVID-19: how HMRC will continue to support customers and the economy
Legislation
The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2020 and The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations 2020
- Implements the uplift
- Removes premium payments from NMW pay and changes the year for salaried staff
The Statutory Sick Pay (General) (Coronavirus Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020
The Statutory Sick Pay (General) (Coronavirus Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2020
The Coronavirus Act 2020 Functions of HMRC (Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme) Direction
Treasury Direction made under Sections 71 and 76 of the Coronavirus Act 2020
Bulletins
COVID-19 and National Minimum Wage / National Living Wage – National Minimum Wage guidance on advances and loans
subscribe to BEIS bulletins for employers
HMRC Employer Bulletin April 2020 – There are two points to comment on at this stage: it refers to the new starter checklist that was published in March and says it’s only to be used if somebody hasn’t got a P45, this is wrong and I’m fed up of pointing it out to HMRC! The starter checklist has to be completed by everybody regardless of whether they have a P45 in order that the student loan questions are completed correctly. There is also confirmation, which will be very unwelcome for agents, that the SSP reclaim when it is introduced will be classed as the minimis state aid so will require the same sort of compliance attention as employment allowance.
Guides
ICAEW have updated their step by step guide for agents
Toolkits
Health and safety and homeworking
News stories
Gender pay reporting – deadlines have been suspended for this year
Parents returning to work after extended leave eligible for furlough
Reservists returning to civilian work eligible for government support schemes
Articles
Coronavirus: Company car tax benefit questioned during pandemic – a useful quote from HMRC responding to the fleet industry in respect to the unavailability of company cars
Coronavirus: immigration implications for UK employers
NHS visa extension ‘may not apply to all staff’
The effect of COVID-19 on director duties and creditor action
The impact of furlough pay on universal credit
Avoid P11D meltdown with Kate’s last minute tips
Furlough and SEISS 2.0: Your questions answered
Letters
The statutory residence test (SRT) has been relaxed
Press releases
Annual leave rules relaxed – carry over of holiday for two years permitted for key industries
Statutory Sick Pay rebate portal
New law to ensure furloughed employees receive full redundancy payments
Forms
Download a template if you’re claiming for 100 or more employees through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – it currently appears that only .csv and .ods files are currently being accepted even though this page says .xls is still acceptable. Files in .xls format will receive an error message about the number of columns in the file being wrong even though the file contains the requisite number of columns. We aren’t aware if or when this will be fixed.
Responses
HMRC have given a definitive answer in response to whether employees have to confirm their agreement to furloughing in writing
Announcements
There has been a statement from the financial secretary to the Treasury overruling HMRC’s publish stance on the reimbursement of employees who have bought equipment to work from home. Hmrc published guidance as recently as last week saying that this was taxable and should be included in the PSA. Many of us have been lobbying against this since the start of the lockdown as we found it manifestly inappropriate and expensive for employers who couldn’t possibly be expected to supply all of the equipment necessary to work from home at such short notice. So it’s good to see common sense prevail even if it’s taken a while. There is no news at this stage as to whether there will be any relaxation on P11D deadlines.
This is the link to the statement from HMRC about employees being able to claim tax relief back using the homeworking allowance rather than employers reimbursing it, which is a change to how the rules operated as previously tax relief was unavailable if employers chose not to make the payment.
Networks
The new Payroll Agents’ Association is a great new resource set up by Barry Mathews: newreality2020@outlook.com
Webinars
AccountingWEB Coronavirus Response Q&A
FAQs
The CJRS FAQs in the House of Commons library are really useful, not only terms of collating the official guidance, but also giving legal commentary on matters.
