Employees

HMRC have announced new fuel rates for company cars, which will apply to all journeys on or after 1 September 2013 until further notice.

Employers may use either the previous rates or the new ones for one month from the date of change. They may make or require supplementary payments but are under no obligation to do either. Petrol hybrid cars are treated as petrol cars for this purpose. The amounts can be used for VAT, but receipts must be retained.

Reasons for disputed liabilities under real-time information

HMRC have launched an online survey to ascertain how difficult employers and agents are finding the real-time information (RTI) obligation to report PAYE details on or before employees’ payday.

Respondents must have several numbers to hand to complete the poll, which closes on 13 September 2013:

The complex system for reporting and taxing employee benefits and expenses is ripe for an overhaul, according to an interim report from the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS).

The document identifies issues for further study, including the payrolling of benefits, abolishing the £8,500 higher-paid threshold, and smoothing the differences between tax and National Insurance rules.

S McGregor (TC2748)

The Treasury’s controversial new employment status is set to go in to operation at the start of next month.

The employee-shareholder arrangement will see staff members give up a number of workers’ rights from 1 September in exchange for at least £2,000 of tax-friendly shares in their employer’s company.

Finance Act 2013 provides reliefs for the shares, meaning income tax and National Insurance will usually not be chargeable on the first £2,000 of share value received, and there will usually be a capital gains tax exemption for up to £50,000 of shares.

The real-time information system that has been introduced to make operation of the PAYE system more straightforward seems to be causing many headaches for employers and their advisers

At the end of term, it is becoming more likely that parents will give presents to the teachers of their children. Some of the presents are quite valauble, and advice is required on whether an income tax or National Insurance contributions liability will arise

Mansworth v Jelley enquiries: is there an argument for legitimate expectation?

HMRC have set up a dedicated team to identify the cause of difficulties for PAYE schemes in reconciling the difference between the tax the department says is due and that which the employer believes is due.

The team is working with schemes through their examples to examine what is causing the discrepancies, with the aim of finding resolutions.

The Revenue hopes the new set-up will form understanding of the issue in greater depth, and lead to steps necessary to prevent the problems arising in future.

Employers are risking problems for their workers by entering 0.00 in the field for annual amount of occupation on the full payment submission (FPS) in cases where no occupational pension is paid, the Revenue has warned.

Experiences of a practitioner and small business suffering under the weight of real-time information