Tag: NIC

Good news for employers – £3k employers allowance

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The NICs Employment Allowance was introduced in April 2014, for the purpose of supporting businesses and charities in helping them to grow by cutting the cost of employment. Eligible employers can claim the allowance, which reduces their Employer NICs bill by up to £2,000 a year. This is an ongoing allowance. Once an employer has claimed the allowance, they will continue to enjoy it in future years, without needing to do anything further. Over a million employers have benefited from the allowance since its introduction.

This measure will increase the Employment Allowance by £1,000 to £3,000 from April 2016. This means eligible business and charities will be able to claim a greater reduction on their employer NICs liability.

This is fantastic news for employers, but there is a potential sting in the tail.

HMRC plan to exclude one person businesses!

But many believe that HMRC’s plan won’t work because all you need to do is employ a family member or friend and then the one person should qualify for the allowance.

John Cullinane, CIOT tax policy director, said: “The government may find its plan to be ineffective in reducing employment allowance claims because it is open to abuse. It will simply have the effect of penalising single director-employee limited companies that are unable to, or do not know that they could, appoint another person as director or employee to claim the allowance.”

http://www.taxation.co.uk/taxation/Articles/2016/01/19/334213/one-person-businesses-may-circumvent-curb-employment-allowance

steve@bicknells.net

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Is this the End of National Insurance?

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You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits including the State Pension.

You pay National Insurance if you’re:

  • 16 or over
  • an employee earning above £155 a week
  • self-employed and making a profit of £5,965 or more a year

The Office of Tax Simplification is currently beginning a process of looking at merging National Insurance with Income Tax.

OTS NI TOR

ACCA’s head of tax Chas Roy-Chowdhury warned that an alignment of NI and income tax rates would be crucial prior to a merger taking place.

Whilst This is Money reported…

Middle and high earners could see their tax bills jump under radical plans to merge income tax and National Insurance, a tax expert has warned.

People taking home £50,000 a year could be £230 worse off, but low earners on £20,000 would save more than £530, and those on £30,000 would come out around £380 ahead, according to snap research by Tilney Bestinvest on the potential tax shake-up.

Chancellor George Osborne wants to reduce ‘complexity’ in the tax system to make it clearer exactly how much people have to cough up, and has ordered the Office of Tax Simplification to see if there is a case for change.

This change is also likely to lead to changes to Pension tax relief reform, Your Money reported…
The government has already announced a consultation on the pension tax relief system, and I believe that a merger of income tax and NI would likely result in the floated idea of a pension with ISA-like tax treatment. This is because at present, a basic rate taxpayer gets 20% tax relief on pension payments but surely this would increase to 32% under a combined system. It seems illogical to increase tax relief at a time when they are actually trying to reduce the cost to the Exchequer. An equal tax treatment of ISAs and pensions could be a prelude to merging the two, potentially drawing ISAs into some form of limetime allowance.
steve@bicknells.net

Have you paid too much National Insurance?

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Unlike Income Tax which is cumulative and assessed across all earnings, National Insurance starts from zero on each individual employment and you also pay National Insurance on Self Employed earnings.

So if you are a Director of multiple businesses paid as an employee its easy to see how you could over pay and you might not even realise because National Insurance is not shown on your Self Assessment Return.

You can also over pay National Insurance if you are a part time employee with multiple employers and irratic earnings, this because National Insurance is calculated on a weekly/monthly basis, not a cumulative basis and its by employer.

What you need to do

Write to HM Revenue and Customs confirming:

  • your National Insurance number
  • why you’ve overpaid
  • the tax year(s) you’ve overpaid

You should include your P60 or a statement from your employer showing the tax and National Insurance for each year you’re claiming for.

You should apply within 6 years of the tax year you’re claiming for.

HM Revenue and Customs
Payment Reconciliation
National Insurance Contributions Office
Benton Park View
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE98 1ZZ

steve@bicknells.net

 

 

Karren likes the Employment Allowance – £2000 will be very NIC(E)

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This is what Karren Brady said…..

She has a point, £2,000 will be a big help to many SME’s.

The Employment Allowance is available from 6 April 2014. If you are eligible you can reduce your employer Class 1 NICs by up to £2,000 each tax year.

You can claim the Employment Allowance if you are a business or charity (including Community Amateur Sports Clubs) that pays employer Class 1 NICs on your employees’ or directors’ earnings.

If your company belongs to a group of companies or your charity is part of a charities structure, only one company or charity can claim the allowance. It is up to you to decide which company or charity will claim the allowance.

You can only claim the £2,000 Employment Allowance against one PAYE scheme – even if your business runs multiple schemes.

You cannot claim the Employment Allowance, for example if you:

  • employ someone for personal, household or domestic work, such as a nanny, au pair, chauffeur, gardener, care support worker
  • already claim the allowance through a connected company or charity
  • are a public authority, this includes; local, district, town and parish councils
  • carry out functions either wholly or mainly of a public nature (unless you have charitable status), for example:
    • NHS services
    • General Practitioner services
    • the managing of housing stock owned by or for a local council
    • providing a meals on wheels service for a local council
    • refuse collection for a local council
    • prison services
    • collecting debt for a government department

You do not carry out a function of a public nature, if you are:

  • providing security and cleaning services for a public building, such as government or local council offices
  • supplying IT services for a government department or local council

Personal and Managed Service Companies who pay contract fees instead of a wage or salary, may not be able to claim the Employment Allowance, as you cannot claim the allowance for any deemed payments of employment income.

Service companies can only claim the allowance, if you pay earnings and have an employer Class 1 NICs liability on these earnings.

You can use your own payroll software (see your software provider’s instructions), or HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Basic PAYE Tools to claim the Employment Allowance.

When you make your claim (using the software of your choice), you must reduce your employer Class 1 NICs payment by an amount of Employment Allowance equal to your employer Class 1 NICs due, but not more than £2,000 per year.

You can read the full guidance here

Will the Employment Allowance be NICE for your business?

steve@bicknells.net

National Insurance – As one NI holiday ends we look forward £2,000 in April 2014

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Under the Regional Employers NICs Holiday scheme, new businesses could have qualified for a deduction of up to £5,000 from the employer NICs that would normally be due – for each of the first ten employees they take on.

The National Insurance contributions (NICs) holiday was available to new businesses that started up during the period from 22 June 2010 to 5 September 2013. So it has now ended.

But from April 2014 the good news is that every employer will save up to £2,000.

To take advance of the allowance, firms will simply have to inform HM Revenue & Customs, and the Treasury says it will be “delivered through standard payroll software”.

Up to 450,000 small businesses will no longer pay national insurance contributions from April 2014.

The allowance will cost almost £6bn over five years.

When George Osbourne announced it in the budget he said:

“For the person who’s set up their own business, and is thinking about taking on their first employee – a huge barrier will be removed. They can hire someone on £22,000, or four people on the minimum wage, and pay no jobs tax,”

So we look forward to claiming our £2,000 next year.

 

steve@bicknells.net

Ways to Save National Insurance

I have always thought that National Insurance (NI) is a strange tax compared to PAYE because:

  1. For normal employees it isn’t cumulative its based on their earnings in a month or week (although Driectors can opt for Cumulative)
  2. It only applies between the ages of 16 and retirement
  3. Its applied at different rates to the Self Employed and there are 4 classes of NI

But the thing that seems totally bizarre to me is that for each job you have you get new NI limits, so if you had a variety of part time jobs you might not pay any National Insurance because your earnings were below the threshold in them all.

This also applys if you are Director, you get a new cumulative limit with each employer.

The current main Class 1 rates are 12% for employees and 13.8% for employers

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/nic.htm

If you’re employed you pay Class 1 National Insurance contributions. The rates are:

  • if you earn more than £146 a week and up to £817 a week, you pay 12 per cent of the amount you earn between £146 and £817
  • if you earn more than £817 a week, you also pay 2 per cent of all your earnings over £817

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/moneytaxandbenefits/taxes/beginnersguidetotax/nationalinsurance/introductiontonationalinsurance/dg_190048

Apart from having multiple jobs or changing jobs here are a few ways that you can save NI:

  1. Salary Sacrifice http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/22/salary-sacrifice-could-save-45-8-in-tax-and-ni-how-does-it-work/
  2. Special NI Holiday Schemes http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/15/holiday-pay-without-any-national-insurance-to-pay/
  3. Regional Employer NI Holiday – save up to £50,000 http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/08/reduce-your-ni-bill-by-50000/
  4. Benefits in Kind – for example Gym membership or Assets placed at the employees disposal – Tax and Class 1A NI is payable but the employee doesn’t pay NI – basically any of th brown boxes on the P11D http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/11/07/tax-free-fitness/http://stevejbicknell.com/2012/04/14/directors-loan-vs-private-use-of-company-assets/

steve@bicknells.net