In the latest edition of its Employer Bulletin, HMRC covers easements on working from home, office equipment supplied to staff, SSP and RTI penalties. What are the key points?
Household expenses
The June Employer Bulletin reminds employees that they can claim tax relief for additional household costs for the whole of the 2021/22 tax year if they have had to work at home, even for a day, and their employer has not paid them the homeworking allowance. Tax relief can also be claimed for 2020/21 if there were any days working at home in that tax year. The easiest way to claim is through the new micro service unless the employee completes a self-assessment tax return. Employees have four years after the end of the relevant tax year to make the claim. The tax relief will be paid via an adjustment to their tax code.
SSP
The SSP rebate scheme continues to support employers with fewer than 250 employees as at 28 February 2020 and permits recovery of up to two weeks of SSP for coronavirus-related absence. SSP is due from day one for all employees with coronavirus-related absence once a period of incapacity for work has been formed on day four, regardless of the size of their employer.
Office equipment
If you have staff returning to the office and require that office equipment that was loaned to them be returned, there is no benefit in kind charge. If, however, you don’t want the equipment back and transfer ownership to the employee, a benefit in kind charge will arise based on the current market value minus any contribution from the employee. If your employees purchased equipment and were reimbursed, they are still considered to own the equipment. Due to an easement in the regulations no tax charge arises on such reimbursements until 5 April 2022 and no benefit in kind charge arises if they keep the equipment as they already own it.
RTI
HMRC has confirmed that penalties for late filing of RTI returns and late payment of PAYE will still be manually issued and not automated for 2021/22 as the standard of RTI data is still not robust enough for automation. As in previous years, HMRC will also continue not to charge penalties if an FPS is filed within three days of the payment date in field 43. Remember that the payment date in field 43 should stay anchored to the contractual payment date even if the employees are actually paid earlier, as the contractual payment date is a weekend or bank holiday.
If you transfer ownership of equipment to staff that they used to work from home, a benefit in kind will arise. Penalties for late RTI returns and payment of PAYE will still be manually issued and not automated for 2021/22.
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