Paying staff early for Christmas? Be sure to submit your FPS on time. Plus, Christmas posting dates, and much more!
Welcome to our round up of the latest business news for our clients. Please contact us if you want to talk about how these updates affect your business. We are here to support you!
Reporting PAYE information in real time – Early Christmas Payments
Some employers pay their employees earlier than usual over the Christmas period. This can be for a number of reasons, for example, during the Christmas period the business may close, meaning workers need to be paid earlier than normal.
If you do pay early over the Christmas period, please report your normal or contractual payday as the payment date on your Full Payment Submission (FPS) and ensure that the FPS is submitted on or before this date.
For example, if you pay on Friday 15 December 2023 but the normal or contractual payment date is Friday 29 December 2023, you will need to report the payment date on the FPS as 29 December 2023 and ensure the submission is sent on or before 29 December 2023.
This will help to protect any of your employees who are eligible for Universal Credit. Reporting the payday as the date payment is made may affect current and future entitlements to Universal Credit.
The overriding PAYE reporting obligation for employers is unaffected by this exception and remains that you must report payments on or before the date the employee is paid.
Please talk to us if you have any queries regarding early PAYE reporting and payments.
See: Running payroll: Overview – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Latest Recommended Christmas Posting Dates
Beat the festive rush and get all your letters and parcels in the post on time.
This year’s latest recommended posting dates are:
- Monday 18 December 2023 – 2nd Class, 2nd Class Signed For.
- Tuesday 19 December 2023 – 1st Class, 1st Class Signed For.
- Wednesday 20 December 2023 – Royal Mail Tracked 48®**.
- Thursday 21 December – Royal Mail Tracked 24®**.
- Friday 22 December 2023 – Special Delivery Guaranteed® (Guaranteed Saturday delivery for an extra fee).
** Royal Mail Tracked 24® and Royal Mail Tracked 48® are not available to purchase at Post Office® branches.
See: Get ready for Christmas 2023 | Royal Mail Group Ltd
Posting documents to Companies House (CH)
From 4 March 2024, all companies who want to file paper documents will need to post them to the Cardiff office:
Companies House
Crown Way
Cardiff
CF14 3UZ
CH will not accept post or hand deliveries at the Belfast office from 4 March 2024. Since September 2023, companies registered in Scotland post their documents to the Cardiff office.
Most companies can file online instead of posting paper documents.
By filing online, you will:
- save your company time and money;
- get confirmation that we’ve received your submission;
- avoid rejects and be less likely to get late filing penalties; and
- get access to additional online services.
CH will continue to accept post in the Belfast office until 1 March 2024. If you post documents to the Belfast office after 1 March 2024, your documents will be re-directed, and they will take longer to reach the Cardiff office.
Over 65% of companies now use software filing as their preferred method.
There are a variety of software providers which offer a range of accounting packages to prepare and file accounts. Most types of accounts can be filed using software, depending on the functionality of the software package you are using.
If you file using our online services, CXH will send you an email to confirm they have received your accounts. They will also send you another email when they have registered your accounts.
To file online, you may need your company authentication code. If you need to request a new code, you should allow up to 5 days for this to arrive at the company’s registered office.
Anyone filing with Companies House should understand their legal responsibilities and duties of being a company director, including the responsibility to file documents on time.
See: Posting documents to Companies House – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Latest HMRC tax webinars for Employers
Listed below are a number of live HMRC webinars that will help employers with payroll. The webinars are free and last around an hour.
Employer filing obligations
Wed 13 Dec at 1:45pm
Taxing employees’ benefits and expenses through your payroll
Thu 14 Dec at 9:45am
Statutory Sick Pay
Mon 18 Dec at 1:45pm
Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay
Tue 19 Dec at 9:45am
What is Peer to Peer (P2P) lending?
P2P is a relatively new concept which bypasses the banks to allow businesses to borrow money directly from ordinary people. Businesses get the funding they need, and lenders get a better rate than they would from leaving their money in the bank. In between the borrower and the lender stands the P2P platform which handles the collection and distribution of loans and repayments.
P2P is very bespoke. The idea is to assess what the business needs first, rather than attempting to fit them into a ‘product’. Consequently, an early informal chat-through is often the best way to progress. Our P2P experts will guide you through the funding process, advising you every step of the way; their knowledge of the market and the lending platforms is unrivalled.
Our P2P experts have been involved in advising businesses on the raising of funds via P2P platforms since its emergence. They have even advised some newly emerging platforms on how to construct their lending guidelines and how they should treat new borrowers.
Autumn Finance Bill published
The Autumn Finance Bill 2023 has been published to enshrine tax changes into law.
Measures in the Bill include helping businesses invest for less and making full expensing- an effective corporate tax cut – permanent.
In March 2021, the former Chancellor announced the super-deduction, under which companies saved up to 25p in each pound they invested. Then at Spring Budget 2023, the now Chancellor introduced temporary full expensing, a three-year capital allowances policy which also delivered up to a 25p saving for every £1 invested.
To provide certainty, when announcing full expensing, the Chancellor was clear that his ambition was to make it permanent when fiscal conditions allowed. At the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor has delivered on this by confirming he will make full expensing permanent.
The Bill also simplifies R&D and extends the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trust schemes by an extra ten years each to 2035, ensuring younger companies can attract the finance they need today to become the unicorns of tomorrow.
The changes to National Insurance, which will take effect on 6 January 2024 for employees and 6 April for self-employed people, is being legislated through a separate Bill to the Autumn Finance Bill 2023. The majority of tax changes in the Bill will take effect from April 2024.
See: Finance Bill publications – Parliamentary Bills – UK Parliament
Ofcom webinar series: what does the Online Safety Act mean for you or your business?
The UK’s Online Safety Act has recently become law and Ofcom has recently published their first consultation on implementing the new rules, including draft codes of practice and guidance.
Businesses are invited to a series of webinars which will cover Ofcom’s proposals on how online services should approach the new duties relating to illegal content.
This webinar series will provide an overview of how Ofcom proposes to implement the law in practice, the draft guidance and codes published, what businesses will need to do to comply with the new illegal content duties, and how you can respond to the consultation.
Dates and focus for each webinar are as follows:
- Webinar 1: 12 December 2023, 11am to 12pm: Introduction to the Online Safety Act and the illegal harms consultation – what does this mean for you and your business? Register for Webinar 1.
- Webinar 2: 16 January 2024, 10am to 11am: An introduction to illegal content risk assessments – how the risk assessment can help you improve safety for your users. Register for Webinar 2.
- Webinar 3: 18 January 2024, 11am to 12pm: An introduction to Ofcom’s draft Codes of Practice for illegal harm – how you can minimise the risk of illegal harm on your service. Register for Webinar 3.
See: Consultation: Protecting people from illegal harms online – Ofcom