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On 29 October, the Employment Forum presented its minimum wage recommendation to the Social Security Minister. If accepted, the minimum wage would rise to £6.08 per hour from 1 April 2009, an increase of 4.8 percent on the current rate.
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
During 2006 and 2007, businesses making total annual PAYE/PRSI payments of up to €28,800 became eligible to make their payments on a quarterly rather than monthly basis. The same simplified arrangements are being extended to include newly eligible customers from 1 January 2009.
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
Summary: The existing local “averaging” procedures, agreed between employers and tax offices in order to calculate the car benefit charge for employees who change their cars very frequently, is replaced by a new, seven-step, national averaging procedure from April 2009.
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
In an interim decision given by the Special Commissioner on 23 October 2008 in the case Mason v HMRC, the Special Commissioner ruled that he was unable, pending further information, to uphold Mr. Mason’s appeal on statutory grounds but expressed the view that Mr. Mason has a “real, and very unfortunate, grievance” against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and HMRC.
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
The House of Lords decision in 2005 in the case Wilkinson v Inland Revenue raised issues concerning HMRC’s powers to make extra-statutory concessions. Within its remit of collecting taxes, HMRC has “wide managerial discretion as to the best means of obtaining for the national exchequer from the taxes committed to their charge, the highest net return that is practicable having regard to the staff available to them and the cost of collection.”
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
Sections 6 and 7 of the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2008 makes provision for the annual PRSI earnings ceiling applicable to employees and optional contributors to increase from €50,700 to €52,000 from 1 January 2009.
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Posted November 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
Statutory Sick Pay and agency workers are a key feature of this week’s news items. A new version SSP1 came into use from 27 October. The new, less work intensive, form can be downloaded from the DWP’s website or ordered in bulk. From the same date, the legislation that, in error apparently, prevented agency workers from receiving SSP if they are engaged for 3 months or less, has been rectified, enabling all agency workers to be paid SSP if they meet the qualifying conditions that apply to all employees. And, the European Parliament has been the “green light” for EU member states to start the process of providing equal treatment for agency workers in comparison with permanent workers. The UK government already has a basic framework for this new entitlement in place, with agreement from the TUC and reluctant agreement from the CBI for the equal treatment to apply after the first 12 weeks of an agency worker’s engagement with a particular employer.
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Posted November 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »
By means of a minor change to the Fixed Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002, agency workers are entitled to be paid SSP from the start of their employment. The change is effective from 27 October 2008 and corrects a situation that came to light when the Court of Appeal, in a decision published on 27 June 2007, ruled that the statutory sick pay (SSP) legislation excluded agency workers from entitlement to SSP if they had less than three months’ continuous employment.
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Posted November 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »
After six years of disagreement, the European Parliament has voted in Strasbourg to support, without amendment, the proposals for the Directive on Temporary Agency Work put forward by the European Commission.
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Posted November 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »
The National Employment Rights Authority (NERA) is responsible for monitoring a range of employment rights through its Inspection Service. An employer’s records may be inspected as a result of complaints received of alleged breaches of employment rights, as a result of targeted inspection campaigns and as a result of routine inspection enquiries.
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Posted November 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »
