All Tax and legislation articles – Page 32
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Article
23% think shared parental leave will help gender discrimination
Less than a quarter (23%) of UK employees believe that new shared parental leave reforms will result in women being viewed more favourably by employers, according to a study conducted by Enterprise Rent-A-Car.The research, drawn from a survey 2,012 employees and 100 recruitment decision makers in November 2014, also revealed ...
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Article
EAT rules that holiday can be carried over
Holiday allowance can be carried over where employees are unable to take annual leave because of reasons beyond their control.An Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found in NHS v Larner in 2012 established that employees can take holiday at a later date because of sickness, but in The Sash Window Workshop ...
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Article
Finance Bill includes tax changes
The draft Finance Bill 2015, published yesterday, provides more detail on the diversion of profits for multinationals, further guidance on changes to pension flexibility and narrowing of the options for small business tax planning.The 552-page draft bill also includes changes to individual savings account (Isa) allowances between spouses on death ...
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Article
HMRC provides VAT guidance on pension fund management costs
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has provided further guidance in its Revenue and Customs Briefs on VAT in relation to pension funds management costs and services.The publication details the consequences of the European the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) Europe in PPG Holdings BV and confirms the ...
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Analysis
Details of the four pensions bills going through Parliament
The Finance Bill 2014This gave HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) new powers to prevent pension liberation schemes being registered starting 20 March 2014 and made it easier to de-register such schemes if, in HMRC’s opinion, the scheme administrator is not a fit and proper person.Pensions Act 2014This received royal assent ...
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Article
Autumn Statement's impact on benefits
Chancellor George Osborne gave his Autumn Statement on 3 December 2014. There were several changes impacting employee benefits.Chancellor confirms plans to scrap pensions death taxGovernment to go ahead with OTS benefits simplification reformsPersonal tax allowance to rise to £10,600Higher-rate tax threshold to riseIsa tax advantages extended to partnersFuel duty to ...
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Article
Government to go ahead with OTS benefits simplification reforms
Autumn Statement 2014: The government has confirmed that it will go ahead with the Office Of Tax Simplification’s (OTS) recommendations and reform the rules for employee benefits and expenses.It has accepted 51 of the 58 recommendations made by the OTS.The proposals will make the taxation of benefits and expenses more ...
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Article
Higher-rate tax threshold to rise
Autumn Statement 2014: The higher-rate tax threshold will rise to £42,385 from April 2015.The current higher-rate threshold is set at £41,865 per annum.According to Chancellor George Osborne, this will take 138,000 people out of the higher-rate tax band.Lesley Fidler, associate director at Baker Tilly, said: ”In the past, generosity at ...
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Article
Personal tax allowance to rise to £10,600
The government will increase the income tax personal allowance to £10,600 from April 2015.This is higher than the previous planned increase of £10,500 announced in the Queen’s Speech in June. It means the first £10,600 of an employee’s annual salary will be exempt from income tax. Anna McCaffrey, senior associate ...
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Article
Chancellor confirms plans to scrap pensions death tax
Autumn Statement 2014: Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that the government will scrap the 55% tax rate to which pension savings are subject on the death of a scheme member.The plans, which were first announced in September 2014, will come into effect from April 2015.Zoe Murphy, partner at law firm ...
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Article
Linklaters to offer enhanced shared parental leave
Linklaters will offer enhanced shared parental leave (SPL) to staff following the statutory rights that have come into force in the UK this week.The global law firm is offering employees full pay for up to six months’ leave, subject to certain conditions. This is inclusive of any maternity or paternity ...
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Article
Update of key compliance issues in November
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled that overtime pay must be included in holiday pay calculations.PricewaterhouseCoopers lost a sex discrimination case against an employee, Erik Pietzka, who wanted to work flexibly but had his request rejected. The employment tribunal heard that the employee who dealt with Pietzka’s application was of ...
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Opinion
Andrew Roycroft: Tax relief for bonus clawbacks
The tax position of such arrangements is complicated by the commercial imperative to pay the bonus upfront, and any repayment occurs only at a later date (clawback). Such bonuses are taxed on receipt, and the difficulty is obtaining tax relief for the repayment.The rules governing deductibility of amounts paid by ...
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Analysis
October case law round-up
Here is a round up of case law impacting employee benefits, where rulings have been made in the last month.A former Nestle’s employee has been ruled to be liable for the tax on a lump sum payment received in exchange for giving up membership of the organisation’s healthcare scheme. An ...
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Article
Government updates bring-your-own-device guidance
The guidance applies to any type of BYOD software product running on a personally-owned device including: container applications on personally-owned smartphones, bootable USB media on home PCs and remote desktop or remote application products.The security aspects in the guidance include: creating an effective BYOD policy to ensure devices are only ...
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Article
Government taskforce to assess holiday pay ruling
A taskforce is to be set up to assess the possible impact of the ruling on holiday pay from the Employment Appeal Tribunal.In the UK Employment Appeal Tribunal judgement it was decided that holiday pay should reflect non-guaranteed overtime.The taskforce, which was announced by business secretary Vince Cable, will consist ...
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Article
Overtime must be included in holiday pay
The Employment Appeal Trubunal (EAT) has ruled that overtime pay must be included in holiday pay calculations.The decision relates to three conjoined cases:Bear Scotland v Fulton and Baxter.Hertel (UK) v Wood and others.Amec Group v Law and others.Bear Scotland v Fulton focused on whether overtime pay or shift allowances should ...
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Article
50% to offer new pension flexibility to older staff
Half of respondents could offer new pension and remuneration flexibility to older workers to enable them to take advantage of the new Freedom of Pensions rules, according to research by Jelf Employee Benefits.The new legislation, which is due to come into force in spring 2015, will allow older employees, (those ...
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Analysis
Update on shared parental leave
The shared parental leave legislation is part of the government’s commitment to support working families, and is included in the Children and Families Bill 2013, which received Royal Assent in March 2014.What is shared parental leave?The new system will allow working families to have more choice around how they balance ...
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Article
Actors denied minimum wage for not meeting 'worker' classification
A number of actors that worked under a profit sharing arrangement have been denied the right to be paid the national minimum wage. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has rejected the original judgement because it failed to apply the correct legal test to see whether the employed actors were defined as ...