There are quite a few employment law changes from April 2019 that will affect your payroll.
New legislation from 6th April requires all employers to provide a payslip to all workers, and to show hours on payslips where their pay varies by the amount of time worked. Many employers will need to review and potentially change the way they issue payslips to include those who are recognised as ‘workers’ and will also be obliged to include the total number of hours worked.
The minimum contributions for auto-enrolment pension schemes increase for both employees and employers in April 2019. Employers must contribute a minimum of 3% of an eligible worker’s pre-tax salary, with the employee contributing 5% themselves.
The budget changes to rates from 1st April:
The National Living wage for over 25 year olds increases to £8.21 per hour from £7.83.
The National Minimum Wage for 21 to 24 year olds increases to £7.70 per hour from £7.38.
The National Minimum Wage for 18 to 20 year olds increases to £6.15 per hour from £5.90.
The National Minimum Wage for under 18 year olds increases to £4.35 per hour from £4.20.
The lower earnings threshold also increases in April 2019:
The weekly earnings threshold for National Insurance and Statutory payments increases from £116 to £118 per week.
Statutory Sick pay increases from £92.05 to £94.25 per week.
Statutory Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Pay increases from £145.18 to £148.68 per week.
Private sector organisations with 250 or more employees must publish their gender gap figures on 4th April 2019.
A new Postgraduate loan (PGL) deduction starts in April 2019. The threshold is £21,000 and the deduction rate is 6%. The PGL will run concurrently with plan 1 and plan 2 repayments if the employee has these in place.
New from April 2019 is the ability to submit revised full payment submissions (FPS) to HMRC beyond 19th April 2019 for the 2018-19 tax year. Previously you had to process an Earlier Year Update (EYU). From April 2020 the EYU will no longer be a valid submission and HMRC’s Basic tools software will be updated to allow customers to submit a FPS return for the year ending 5th April 2020 and onwards, to report any amendments.
