Main Legislative Changes 2019/2020

DATES TO REMEMBER

• 6th April - New tax year commences
• 31st May - Statutory deadline for issuing P60s to employees
• 6th July - Statutory deadline for P11Ds
• 19th July - Payment of Class 1A NIC due

Employment Allowance

The Employment Allowance (EA) reclaim continues into 2019/20 at the rate of £3,000 p/a. Notification of the reclaim to HMRC is via RTI and PSC we will continue to carry out this process on your behalf if you are a client.

The entitlement criteria for reclaiming the EA remains unchanged:The employment allowance will apply per employer, regardless of how many PAYE schemes an employer has in operation. Therefore, each employer can only claim for one allowance. Connected businesses cannot always claim the allowance concurrently and we would therefore recommend that clients with more than one payroll consult HMRC guidelines on this matter.

Moreover, there are certain organisations (mainly those in the public service of supplying services to public service organisation) that cannot claim the allowance, so we would kindly ask you to consult Gov.UK if this category applies to your organisation.

Apprenticeship Levy

The Apprenticeship Levy continues into 2019/20 on the same basis and will affect all employers with an annual pay bill of £3M or greater.

The pay bill will be calculated on total employee earnings liable to Class one secondary NICs (i.e. NIC-able pay). The levy sum will be calculated on this pay bill at 0.50% subject to an annual allowance of £15,000.

For example, an employer with an annual pay bill of £5M will pay £10,000 towards the levy: (5,000,000*0.50%) –15,000 = 10,000

If clients are due to pay the levy, it will be expressed on the payroll summary along with the basis for calculation on a period-by-period basis. In addition, we will include details of the levy with the monthly EPS submission and this liability will also be included in the HMRC BACS payments should clients utilise this additional service.

Class 1A NIC

This employer’s NI contribution is calculated on the majority of employee benefits noted on the form P11D. Payment of Class 1A contributions for 2018/19 should be made by 19th July 2019.

Auto-Enrolment & Workplace Pension Schemes

In accordance with guidance from The Pensions Regulator, schemes operating on a minimum contribution basis will need to increase contributions for both employee and employer from April 2019.

The majority of schemes affected are those where the employee is currently contributing 3% (or 2.4% net) and the employer 2%. These schemes will increase to 5% employee (or 4% net) and 3% employer contributions from April 2019.

For pension schemes where employee’s and employer’s contributions are already above the 2019/20 minimum contribution levels (i.e. in excess of an 8% minimum combined contribution) there is no action to take.

Hours on Payslips

From April 2019, a payslip must show the total number of variable hours a worker has worked. This is only required when workers get a different wage depending on the hours they have worked. This might be because they have worked overtime, the number of hours they work changes in each pay period, or the rate they get for working certain hours is different.

>The payslip only needs to show the hours that actually vary. For example, if a worker is salaried to work for 20 hours in a pay period but also works 4 hours of overtime, only the additional 4 hours must be recorded.

These hours can be shown as a single total or they can be broken down.

Tax

Tax codes with certain suffixes will be increased from 6th April unless a coding notice has been issued by HMRC: