There have been many changes to employment law and regulations in the last few years. A key area is the freedom or lack of freedom to dismiss an employee. An employee’s employment can be terminated at any time but unless the dismissal is fair the employer may be found guilty of unfair dismissal by an Employment Tribunal.
Continue readingInternet and Email Access Policy
In order to protect the firm, its employees, customers and suppliers, all members of staff should be given a copy of the firm’s policy regarding acceptable use of IT resources – particularly internet, email access, and data protection policies. It may also be necessary to have a separate Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy covering the use of personal devices and to what extent (if any) these are permitted to connect to corporate information systems.
Continue readingPayroll Real Time Information
Under Real Time Information, employers or their agents are required to make regular payroll submissions for each pay period during the year, detailing payments and deductions made from employees each time they are paid. There are two main returns which an employer needs to make which are detailed below.
Continue readingSecuring Business Success
As many as half of all businesses fail in their first three years of trading. A contributor to ensuring business success and avoiding failure is to know your enemies. Generally the main reason for the high failure rate of small newly established businesses is when the owner lacks experience in managing all aspects of the business.
Continue readingVAT – Bad Debt Relief
It is quite possible within the VAT system for a business to be in the position of having to pay over VAT to HMRC while not having received payment from their customer. Bad debt relief allows businesses, that have made supplies on which they have accounted for and paid VAT but for which they have not received payment, to claim a refund of the VAT by reference to the outstanding amount.
Continue readingAgency Workers Regulations
Regulations which took effect from 1 October 2011 mean that workers supplied to a company, or to any other entity, by an agency will become entitled to receive pay and basic working conditions equivalent to any directly employed employees after a 12 week qualifying period.
Continue readingCommunity Amateur Sports Clubs
Local amateur sports clubs may wish to register with HMRC as Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) and benefit from a range of tax reliefs including Gift Aid. This factsheet considers the tax benefits and the registration requirements that clubs have to satisfy.
Continue readingEmployee Expenses
This factsheet considers the operation and reporting of employee expenses and benefits. An exemption may apply to the reporting of employee expenses on forms P11D as long as the necessary conditions are met. Under the exemption the business must satisfy itself that the employee would be entitled to full tax relief on the expenses reimbursed.
Continue readingIR35 Personal Service Companies
The ‘IR35’ rules are designed to prevent the avoidance of tax and national insurance contributions (NICs) through the use of personal service companies and partnerships. The rules do not stop individuals selling their services through either their own personal companies or a partnership. However, they do seek to remove any possible tax advantages from doing so.
Continue readingPensions – Automatic Enrolment
What is automatic enrolment? Automatic enrolment places duties on employers to automatically enrol ‘workers’ into a work based pension scheme.
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