News – Page 22
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OTS to implement nine quick wins on employee benefits
Autumn Statement 2013: The Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) is to implement nine ‘quick wins’ identified in its interim report on employee benefits and expenses, by the end of January 2014.Its plans were announced in the 2013 Autumn Statement on 5 December.The OTS is due to publish details of these ...
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Government to extend tax exemption on employer-paid healthcare
Autumn Statement 2013: The Autumn Statement 2013 has confirmed the government is to introduce a tax exemption on amounts of up to £500 paid by employers for medical treatment for employees. This was first announced in the Budget 2013,In response to a consultation into how to implement the tax relief, ...
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Tax exemption on bonuses under employee ownership
Autumn Statement 2013: The government is to provide an annual exemption from income tax on bonuses or equivalent payments on amounts up to £3,600 paid to employees of organisations that are indirectly employee-owned.This is part of a package of measures for the government to provide an additional £25 million to ...
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Basic state pension to increase by £2.95 a week
Autumn Statement 2013: The basic state pension will increase by £2.95 per week from April 2014, as announced by Chancellor George Osborne (pictured) in the Autumn Statement 2013.The increase is in line with the triple lock, which means that the full basic state pension in 2014/15 will be around £8.50 ...
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UK has the most high earners in Europe
The UK has the largest number of high earners in Europe at 2,714, according to research by the European Banking Authority (EBA).Its High earners 2012 data report, which classified high-earners as individuals who are paid more than €1 million (£830,000) annually, has been published ahead of the implementation of bonus-capping ...
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DOD’s blog: Will you still need me when I'm 68?
It is rare I feel quite as excited about Autumn Statements and Budget Speeches as I did yesterday.After years of writing about the fact that sharesave limits have not been raised since 1991 (that is I, Employee Benefits and many others more influential than ourselves), I was thrilled to hear ...
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Share scheme limits to increase
Autumn Statement 2013: The government has announced that it will increase the limits for share plans from April 2014.The limits on sharesave schemes will double from £250 a month to £500.In addition, the maximum value of shares an employee can acquire with tax advantages through share incentive plans (Sips) will ...
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Employers unaware of shares for rights scheme
More than three-quarters (80%) of respondents have never heard of the government’s employee shareholder scheme, according to research by law firm, Irwin Mitchell.The research, which surveyed 500 UK employers, found that, out of the 20% of respondents that said they were aware of the scheme, only 1% said they were ...
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Abercrombie staff entitled to guaranteed payments
The Court of Appeal has found in favour of hourly-paid employees at US clothing retailer Abercrombie to claim guarantee payments for workless days.In the case, Abercrombie and Ors v AGA Rangemaster Ltd, staff agreed to work a four-day week under a temporary agreement that had been made through their trade ...
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Care workers paid below minimum wage
More than 2,400 employees in the care sector have been paid below the national minimum wage over the past two years, according to an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).HMRC looked at jobs across the sector and investigated 224 employers, with some investigations still ongoing.Eighty-eight cases have been found ...
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HMRC offers tax settle opportunity on EFRBS
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has offered employers the opportunity to settle the tax arising on employer-financed retirement benefit schemes (EFRBS).The settlement opportunity is open until 31 December 2013, with enquiries to be settled by 30 June 2014.EFRBSs are discretionary trusts set up by an employer to provide benefits for ...
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HMRC wins £300k bonus tax avoidance case
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has won a case that would have avoided nearly £160,000 in tax and national insurance (NI) contributions on an employee’s bonus.The owner of a Cirencester-based pharmacy, LM Ferro, had received advice on how to extract value from the organisation in a tax-efficient manner.Tax advisory firm ...
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Government publishes update on employee ownership
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published an update on employee ownership, one year after the government’s response to The Nuttall review on employee ownership.The update, The Nuttall review of employee ownership: one year on report, said that progress has been made against all 28 of the review’s ...
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NAPF publishes guidance on remuneration policies
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has published its latest Corporate governance policy and voting guidelines.The guidance includes:New remuneration principles against which investors can judge an organisation’s pay policy and its appropriateness for that organisation.More robust expectations for corporate accountability.Greater emphasis on corporate reporting of extra-financial factors, including risks ...
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ABI updates guidelines on executive remuneration
The Associate of British Insurers (ABI) has published the annual update of its guidelines on designing and operating executive director remuneration.The 2013 version of its Principles of remuneration are intended to apply for 2014 annual general meetings and annual reports.The updated version includes:Performance adjustment/malus and clawback: The update provides a ...
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Collective pension could provide 33% better outcome
Collective pensions could provide a 33% better outcome than individual provision, according to a report by David Pitt-Watson (pictured), lead for the Tomorrow’s Investor programme at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).The Collective pensions in the UK II report, which follows on from its ...
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Royal Mail staff must wait for full shares allocation
Royal Mail employees will not receive their full free share allocation until April 2014.Using calculations based on a maximum share price offer of 330p per share, the 150,000 eligible full-time employees were due to immediately receive around 725 free shares each, while part-time staff would receive a smaller number of ...
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Court blocks offshore bonus tax avoidance scheme
A £31 million offshore bonus tax avoidance scheme operated by Aberdeen Asset Management has been shut down by a Scottish court.The FTSE 100-listed fund manager paid senior employees and directors bonuses free of income tax and national insurance contributions (NICs), between 2000 and 2003, using an employee benefits trust (EBT).The ...
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Enhanced redundancy payments for older workers not discriminatory
The judgement, on 11 October, relates to the case earlier this year of Romily Lockwood v Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Cabinet Office in which the former administrative officer for the DWP claimed that the voluntary redundancy scheme offered by the organisation discriminated against her because of her ...
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Multinationals unprepared for expatriate tax and payroll issues
Multinational employers do not have the adequate procedures in place to track tax, payroll and immigration issues for employees on formal or informal overseas assignments, according to research by EY.Its Your talent in motion: global mobility effectiveness survey 2013, which questioned 264 senior global mobility professionals, found that, despite this, ...