Employer Bulletin: October 2024

HMRC recently released its October 2024 edition of the HMRC Employer Bulletin. This bulletin provides essential updates and guidance for employers and payroll managers. Here are the highlights:

Guidance for employers on Real Time Information reporting obligations for early Christmas payments

If you are paying your employers early over the Christmas period, you must report your normal or contractual payment date on your Full Payment Submission (FPS). 

For example, if you pay on 20 December but your normal payment date is 31 December, you must report the payment date as 31 December. In this example, the FPS would need to be sent on or before 31 December. 

Doing this will help to protect your employees’ eligibility for income-based benefits such as Universal Credit, as an early payment could affect current and future entitlements. 

Register as an employer — online process 

At the end of September 2024, as part of a gradual process of modernising their systems, HMRC updated some of the links and options available on the government website as part of the online employer registration process. These updates will only affect a small number of digital pathways — including those used by charities. 

The updates will not affect the ability of any employer or payroll agent to register for a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) scheme and obtain a PAYE reference number, but frequent users of the process may notice minor changes to some of the options available. 

Notice of change to effective date of new data requirements on employees’ hours

From March to May 2024, the previous government consulted on two draft statutory instruments — the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 and the Income Tax (Additional Information to be included in Returns) Regulations 2024 — with a view to improving the data collected through the tax system. The draft regulations set out new requirements for businesses to change the information they provide to HMRC through both Income Tax self-assessment (ITSA) and PAYE real-time returns. 

These regulations and new requirements were intended to take effect from April 2025. However, owing to the delay caused by the general election and the lead-in time required to prepare for implementation, employers will now not be required to start providing more detailed employees’ hours data through PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) returns until April 2026 at the earliest. 

How salary sacrifice affects National Minimum Wage

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is the lowest rate of pay per hour that most workers must be paid by law. The NMW rules also apply to the rate referred to as the National Living Wage. It does not matter how many workers you employ, you must pay the correct minimum wage rates. 

Salary sacrifice schemes are one of the common causes of NMW underpayments. A salary sacrifice is a general term used to describe an arrangement where a worker gives up their contractual entitlement to a portion of their salary, in exchange for some form of benefit. 

If you operate salary sacrifice schemes, you need to check the new reduced pay does not take workers’ pay below NMW for all time worked in every pay reference period.

The full bulletin provides further topics and more detailed information around the above to support employers in ensuring they are working within the required guidelines.

If you have any questions or concerns about the topics covered in HMRC’s bulletin, please contact Simon.