With everyone now preparing to make a claim through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, it is important to update you on some changes that have been made relating to employee eligibility.
- You can claim for employees that were employed as of 19 March 2020 and were on your PAYE payroll on or before that date. This means that you will have made an RTI submission notifying HMRC of payment of that employee on or before 19 March 2020.
- Employees that were employed as of 28 February 2020 and on payroll (i.e. notified to HMRC on an RTI submission on or before 28 February) and were made redundant or stopped working for you after that, and prior to 19 March 2020, can also qualify for the scheme if you re-employ them and put them on furlough.
More information on this can be found on GOV.UK.
How to Claim
As you prepare to make a claim, please note:
- The online claim service will be launched on GOV.UK on 20 April 2020. Please do not try to access it before this date as it will not be available.
- The only way to make a claim is online. The service should be simple to use and any support you need available on GOV.UK. This includes help with calculating the amount you can claim.
- You can make the claim yourself even if you usually use an agent.
- Claims will be paid within 6 working days. You should not contact HMRC unless it is necessary. Any queries should be directed to us as your agents or through the HMRC web-chat service.
- HMRC cannot answer any queries from employees. Employees will need to raise these with you, as their employer, directly.
The Information You Will Need
Please make sure you have the following before 20 April 2020 in order to make a claim:
- A Government Gateway (GG) ID and password. If you don’t already have a GG account, you can apply for one online, or by going to GOV.UK and searching for ‘HMRC services: sign in or register’.
- Be enrolled for PAYE online. If you aren’t registered yet, you can do so now, or by going to GOV.UK and searching for ‘PAYE Online for employers’.
- The following information for each furloughed employee you will be claiming for:
- Name
- National Insurance number
- Claim period and claim amount.
- PAYE/employee number (optional)
- If you have fewer than 100 furloughed staff, you will need to input information directly into the system for each employee.
- If you have 100 or more furloughed staff, you will need to upload a file with information for each employee; HMRC will accept the following file types: .xls .xlsx .csv .ods.
How We Can Help
If we are authorised to act for you on PAYE matters, we can make the claim on your behalf via our Government Gateway. We have already had several claim requests but if you have not informed us that you wish us to reclaim your worker’s pay from HMRC please email your request to payroll@dunkleys.accountants ASAP.
For security reasons, please do not email us your company bank account details. We will telephone you on the day that your claim is being processed to obtain your bank details.
If for whatever reason we cannot submit your claim via our Government Gateway we will be in contact to find an alternative solution.
If we do not run your Payroll, unfortunately we will be unable to make the claim on your behalf. With this said, we can help guide you through the process. If you would like support on this, please get in touch and we will try and support you in every way we can.