Following a decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, your employees may be entitled to have regular overtime included when calculating their holiday pay. This applies to all employees who are obliged to work overtime where requested by their employer and this ‘non-guaranteed’ overtime must be taken into account in holiday pay calculations if there is a settled pattern of work or if there are regular overtime payments, even if the number of hours is variable.

Howell & Co can help employers review their working arrangements to see whether they may be affected by the tribunal decision. If affected, there may be a liability for back-dated payments, although the government has introduced regulations to limit the amount to two years, which takes effect from 1^st July 2015. Further guidance is available on the ACAS website. 

 

If you are self-employed, a company director or have property income or capital gains and have not already filed your 2013/2014 tax return then you will already be liable for a £100 late filing penalty, even if there is no tax due.

If tax returns are not filed within three months of the 31^st January 2015 deadline, so no later than 30^th April 2015, then there is a further penalty of £10 per day, up to a maximum of £900. Howell & Co can offer advice and guidance on your personal tax liability, ensuring you are registered with HMRC and helping you get any late returns filed as promptly as possible.

Introduced as a law in 2012 to encourage more people to consider a pension or saving for retirement, auto-enrolment is a phased scheme that affects every organisation with a PAYE plan. As of late 2016, all employers will have to auto-enrol eligible employees into a qualifying pension scheme. It is the employer’s responsibility to have a pension scheme in place and this can be administered through the Government-backed NEST (National Employment Savings Trust) scheme, or one of a number of other reputable programmes, some of which specifically cater for small and medium sized businesses.

Whilst 2016 seems a long way off, and your actual start date varies depending on a number of factors, it would be wise to start thinking now about how you will manage this new legal requirement. Will your in-house payroll team process the applications or will you outsource? What and how will you communicate to employees? Who will deal with the ongoing administration?

Howell & Co urges you to take the time now to prepare and ensure you avoid the substantial penalties for non-compliance.