Employing Under 21 year olds?

Posted on by
Reply

Here is some useful information you need to know

Changes to National Insurance Contributions as of 6 April 2015

Some good news! If you employ anyone under the age of 21 years, Employers Class 1 secondary National Insurance Contributions will change to a rate of 0% up to the equivalent of the new ‘Upper Secondary Threshold’.  At the moment the rate is 13.8% so this is a cost saving that may encourage employers to employ more young people.

We recommend that you check that you have the correct date of birth for your employees stored in your payroll software to ensure that the correct NI rates are used from April 2015.

Useful guide on Employing Staff from the HMRC is available here

Children at work – did you know?

If you are employing a child between the ages of 13 until they are considered as legally having left school, you need to notify the Local Authority, which will be the local County Council or equivalent body.

Each authority publishes guidance on employing young people of school age. As an example to find out what the requirements are for businesses located within East Sussex and when they apply please follow this link to East Sussex County Council guidance.

 

 

 

Focus on Furniture Now!

Posted on by
Reply

AFH Payroll are proud to support this great East Sussex Charity who combine community minded recycling of furniture and clothes to in turn support homeless and unemployed people to get settled and back into employment.

Furniture Now! Was established in 2007 and CEO Petrina Mayson is at the forefront of driving forward the aims and objectives of the organisation.

With premises in Lewes, Eastbourne and Hailsham, the Charity has been rightly applauded for their amazing work locally.

At the recent Women in Business Awards earlier this month, Petrina Mayson was Highly Commended as Overall Business of the Year 2014, and also won Mentor of the Year 2014.

AFH Payroll are sponsoring the Crowborough Chamber of Commerce membership for Furniture Now.

AFH Payroll are a recycling point for Furniture Now! So local businesses can bring their toner cartridges, and mobile phones to us for recycling.

For more information on this excellent charity, please visit and like their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Furniture.Now.charity?ref=br_tf

You can also follow them on Twitter: @Furniture_Now

Eastbourne Youth Radio 2014

Posted on by
Reply

AFH Payroll are proud in be sponsoring Eastbourne College for this years Eastbourne Youth Radio (October 2014)

Save the date: Eastbourne Youth Radio will be on 87.7 fm from 10.00am Wednesday 19 November until 5.00pm Friday 21st November.

Eastbourne Youth Radio is into it’s 14th year of broadcasting.  This initiative is organized by the Eastbourne Education Business Partnership in association with Sussex Downs College.

Students aged between 5 – 19 years from schools across Eastbourne will be involved in the planning, creating and broadcasting and listeners can expect a wide range of entertainment across the EYR channel.  These include live interviews, drama, music and features.

AFH Payroll are proud to sponsor Eastbourne College students’ involvement with Eastbourne Youth Radio.

Keep your ears tuned in and listen out for our Director, Fiona Hill, who will be interviewed during this years’ broadcast.

To find out more about Eastbourne Youth Radio, please visit http://www.eyr.org.uk/home

Don’t forget – there have been changes in the National Minimum Wage which came into effect this month (October 2014)

Posted on by
Reply

The new National Minimum Wage apply to payroll / salary periods starting on or after 1 October 2014 and are:

  • the main adult rate (for workers aged 21 and over) is £6.50 per hour
  • the rate for workers aged between 18 and 20 is £5.13 per hour
  • the rate for workers aged under 18 is £3.79 per hour
  • the rate for apprentices is £2.73* per hour.

The rates are influenced by age, and apprentices / employees must be the school leaving age to qualify for the above rates.

*The rate for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year of an apprenticeship. All other apprentices are entitled to the National Minimum Wage for their age.

Source HMRC

AFH Payroll can assist with your payroll needs, ensuring you naturally comply with any legislative changes affecting your business.  Contact us today if you would like an informal discussion about how we can help.

Useful links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/above-inflation-rise-for-national-minimum-wage

https://www.facebook.com/nmwage

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1902

 

 

AFH Payroll meets the Pensions Minister

Posted on by
Reply

Fiona Hill meets Steve Webb MPDuring May 2014, our MD Fiona Hill met Steven Lloyd, MP for Eastbourne and Steve Webb, the Minister of State for Pensions during their visit to a local business to find out how they had met their obligations for workplace pensions auto enrolment . Both Mr Lloyd and Mr Webb were very interested to receive feedback on both the positive aspects of auto enrolment as well as the challenges for a business.Fiona Hill meets Stephen Lloyd

Eastbourne Youth Radio

Posted on by
Reply

We are very pleased that we are supporting Eastbourne Youth Radio again which is broadcasting 20th to 22nd November 2013.  Most schools in the Eastbourne area are involved and we are very proud to be sponsoring Eastbourne College this year.

The hour that we are sponsoring will be broadcast on 21st November from 7pm until 8pm. During the hour, there is an interview with Petrina Mayson, the CEO of Furniture Now! Charity. Until we heard Petrina speak recently we had no idea of the amount of good work being done by this charity to change peoples lives locally. Please do listen in if you have a chance as there is so much that we can all do to support this charity in addition to donating funds.

To find out more about Eastbourne Youth Radio or to listen to the show online, please click the link below:

http://eyr.org.uk/

 

Alternatively if you are in the Eastbourne area you can listen by tuning into 87.7FM.

NI allowance from April 2014

Posted on by
Reply

From April 2014, every employer will be able to benefit from the new NI allowance. This will be worth upto £2,000 for each employer.

For the tax year 2014/15 employers will be able to reduce their payments to HMRC by the amount of employers NI included within the total amount payable for the month or quarter.

Registration to claim this allowance will be through payroll software as part of regular RTI submissions when the first submission is made to HMRC in 2014/15.

Small employers with an employers NI liability of less than £2,000 in a tax year will have their allowance restricted to the amount of the employers NI liability.

Employer PAYE payments from April 2013

Posted on by
Reply

For 2013-14 tax year, all employers should make electronic payments to Cumbernauld Accounts Office for the tax year 2013-14.

This will not affect any employers who currently pay to Cumbernauld but those employers making PAYE/NI payments to Shipley Accounts Office will need to change payment details to:

Sort Code: 08-32-10

Account number: 12001039

pound attached to a mouse

 

Ready for RTI?

Posted on by
Reply

Starting in April 2013, HMRC will be requiring employers to submit payroll information in real time (RTI) rather than making an annual submission after a tax year has ended.  From April 2013 a submission to HMRC needs to be made at or before the time of payment to employees, so this may be a weekly or monthly activity depending on the frequency of the payroll runs.

Before the new tax year starts on 6th April 2013, it is important to get prepared; if an employer is running their payroll in-house they need to check that the software is RTI compliant or if the payroll is outsourced that the payroll provider is ready for RTI.Wildflowers with green

As part of the preparation for RTI, employers need to ensure that they have accurate and upto date information about all their employees including:

  • Name
  • date of birth
  • gender
  • address
  • national insurance number

Employee names should be their legal name and include any middle names.  For example if a Frederick Simon Smith is currently included as Fred S Smith, the name should be amended to his full name.

From the 6th April 2013 additional information will need to be reported to HMRC as part of the payroll such as

  • hours worked
  • employee information for temporary, casual workers and employees paid below the national insurance Lower Earnings Limit (LEL)

The information submitted by employers (or their payroll providers) will mean that HMRC will hold current information about earnings and so there should be fewer incorrect tax codes for individuals. This information will also be used to assess payments under the new Universal credits.  All employers regardless of their size will be required to operate RTI during 2013-14.