In March 2020, the UK government introduced a new terminology of ‘furlough’ (the first for UK employment law) through its Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and intends it to be used as a mechanism to reimburse a percentage of the wages to companies that may have otherwise been forced to make redundancies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s important to clearly define the meaning of ‘furlough’, which is generally considered to be someone who is on a temporary leave of absence from work.  This is usually due to economic reasons or relating to challenges affecting the whole country.

As of July 2021, the government is finally starting to wind down the CJRS – which is currently set to come to an end on 30 September. The below information will help you pay furloughed workers for the remainder of the scheme.

 

Government contribution

From of 1 August 2021, the government will pay 60% of wages up to a maximum cap of £1,875 for the hours the employee is on furlough. To be eligible for the grant, the employer must “top up” the employee’s wages to at least 80% when they are furloughed.

 

How to Calculate Wages at 60%

You are now eligible to claim 60% of the following:

• Usual monthly wage costs, up to £1,875 a month
• Associated Employer National Insurance contributions
• Minimum automatic enrolment employer pension contributions on that wage.

You should only reclaim 60% and both National Insurance and minimum auto-enrolment contributions should be calculated only on 60%. You must pay the remainder whether you are paying 80% or 100%.

For employees with pay that varies, the guidance states:

If the employee has been employed for 12 months or more, you can claim the highest of either the:

• same month’s earning from the previous year
• average monthly earnings for the 2020-2021 tax year

09/04/2020 – HMRC have confirmed to us that, where employees are paid a salary but work regular overtime “the calculation should be the higher amount of either the employees average wage for tax 19/20 tax year (overtime included) or the amount made in the corresponding month of the previous tax year (18/19)”.

If the employee has been employed for less than 12 months, claim for 80% of their average monthly earnings since they started work.
If the employee only started in February 2020, work out a pro-rata for their earnings so far, and claim for 80%.
You can only claim for furloughed employees that were on your PAYE payroll on or before 02 March 2021 and which were notified to HMRC on an RTI submission on or before 02 March 2021. This means an RTI submission notifying payment in respect of that employee to HMRC must have been made on or before 02 March 2021.

 

How to Display on Payslips

If you’re a client of Talk Staff Payroll, we are recommending that you pay any employees using a new component, worded as either:

• Furlough_August
• Furlough_August_20

This will ensure that our Payroll Team can easily calculate your claim.

Please remember that legislation came into force in 2019, requiring all employers to:

• provide payslips to all workers
• show hours on payslips where the pay varies by the amount of time worked

You should still continue to abide by these new rules until otherwise advised not to do so.

 

How to Reclaim Wage Costs from HMRC

HMRC have a system in place to reclaim money back. Note that claims must be submitted by 11:59pm 14 calendar days after the month you’re claiming for. You will still be able to claim for September 2021 – claims must be submitted by 14 October 2021.

We are currently offering two packages (subject to change) to assist with this:

• Standard Claim (£79.00), where only 80% is paid with minimum auto-enrolment contributions made and employees remain furloughed until the scheme comes to an end
• Advanced Claim (£POA), where the employer chooses to pay above 80% and/or auto-enrolment contributions are higher than the minimum requirement and/or employees are furloughed on a rotation basis

It is important, where possible, that you continue to pay employees inline with the guidance and then reclaim this at a later date.