Payroll Changes From April 2019
The new tax year is fast-approaching. Here are some of the changes you can expect from April 2019.
Change to Tax Codes, Statutory Payments and other rates
The personal tax allowance is increasing to £12,500 in April 2019.
Statutory Payments
| From April 2019 | |
| Statutory Sick Pay | £92.45 per week |
| Statutory Maternity Pay | £148.68 per week |
| Lower Earnings Limit for Statutory Payments | £118 per week |
Payslips
From April 2019 new legislation will come into force requiring employers to (a) provide payslips to workers, and (b) show hours where the pay varies by the amount of time worked. Where an employee has a fixed salary each month and works variable overtime with additional pay at an hourly rate, only the hours of overtime need to be shown. It should be clear in which pay period all hours were worked.
Tandem Payroll gives a great deal of thought goes into ensuring the payslips we provide set out the various elements of pay clearly.
For more information see the link below:
Student Loans
The first repayments begin for the new postgraduate loan from 6 April 2019. This is repaid concurrently with other undergraduate student loans (Plan 1 or Plan 2).
Holiday Pay
Legislation continues to develop around holiday pay. At long last, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published additional guidance on how to calculate holiday pay with examples.
This recommends the use of a 12-week average for workers without fixed hours or pay rather than the 12.07% percentage of hours worked previously set out by ACAS.
Please find below a link to the guidance below:
The current position with holiday pay is that the 4 weeks’ leave guaranteed under EU law must be based on “normal remuneration”. The principle is that the worker should be in the same financial position as they would have been had they not taken the leave.
This is to ensure that workers are not deterred from taking leave by being financially disadvantaged as a result. “Normal remuneration” is interpreted to include payments that are normally received, including any commission, bonuses, and overtime directly and intrinsically linked to the work that the worker is required to do.
Changes for the Future
Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018
This new law (given Royal Assent in September 2018) is not expected to be enforced on employers until April 2020.
It introduces a right for employed parents to be absent from work for a minimum period of two weeks following the death of a child. Eligibility criteria and various conditions will determine whether parents are entitled to this leave and whether or not they are also entitled to pay. In addition to leave and pay, parents taking bereavement leave will be afforded employment protections similar to those associated with other forms of family related leave.
Did you know?
An employee now has a right to a statement of employment particulars if they have worked continuously for at least a month. Previously they needed to be provided within 2 months of their employment start date. There is talk about changing this to a day one right of employment.