Furlough Scheme Portal Now Open

You may or may not have seen the email below from HMRC yesterday  with a link to their website to claim furlough. It includes further guidance that clarifies some grey areas.

The platform has been set it up such that you cannot save anything. You must go in just once and complete everything in one go. It times you out after 30 minutes if there is no activity and no confirmation email is sent. You have to just take a print of the page on the internet if you want a record of the claim.

From the new guidance, you can claim in a month for the number of days furlough that fall in that month, even if the three weeks minimum furlough have not yet been completed. You have to claim shortly before or during the payroll run and must claim only once in the month for all employees at the same time.

The agreed furlough period cannot be extended. A new minimum 3-week furlough has to be entered into if a longer period of furlough is required.

HMRC’s online calculator says you can’t claim NI through the scheme if your NI for the month is fully covered by the Employment Allowance, which makes sense.

Pension can be claimed, even if it is not into an auto-enrolment scheme. You can claim 3% of pay but the first £520 of monthly pay is not eligible and the £2,500 cap on pay has to be applied (i.e. the maximum claimable is 3% of £1,980, being £2,500 less £520).

Apportionment is done based on the number of calendar days in the month, not working days.

Eligibility

The eligibility date for staff has been changed. Originally staff had to be on the payroll on 28^th February.  Now they need to be included on an RTI submission on or before to 19^th March.

Payment

To receive payment by 30 April you will need to complete an application by 22 April.

National Insurance

In calculating the total employer National Insurance contributions paid in any pay period, the employer should subtract any Employment Allowance used in that pay period. If you have not, or do not expect to pay any employer National Insurance contributions in a pay period as a result of the Employment Allowance, you should not claim any employer National Insurance contributions costs for furloughed employees in that pay period. If you expect to exhaust any Employment Allowance in a pay period then you should claim the lower of the employer National Insurance contributions grant calculation, and the employer National Insurance contributions costs that you paid, or expect to pay across your entire payroll.

Pension

You’ll still need to pay pension contributions on behalf of your furloughed employees, and you can claim for these up to the level of the mandatory employer contribution, even if it’s not an auto-enrolment pension

If you need help with submitting your furlough claim please let us know.

THIS IS THE DETAILED GUIDANCE FROM HMRC WITH SOME UPDATED GUIDANCE

You can now claim online for a grant for 80% of your furloughed employees’ salaries, up to a maximum of £2,500 per employee, per month, through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

This scheme will be open until the end of June 2020.

Before you make a claim:

• please read all the available guidance on GOV.UK before you apply
• gather all the information and the precise calculations you need before you start your application – if you have a payroll provider, they will be able to help you with this
• you can find out more in the calculation guidance where you can access a claim calculator – this will allow you to check your claim for most employees who are paid the same amount each pay period
• access our simple step-by-step guide for additional help.

After you’ve made a claim:

• keep a note or a print-out of your claim reference number – you won’t receive a confirmation SMS or email
• retain all records and calculations for your claims, in case we need to contact you about them
• expect to receive the funds six working days after you apply, provided your claim matches records that we hold for your PAYE scheme – please do not contact us before this time
• to receive payment by 30‌‌ April, you will need to complete an application by 22‌‌ April
• please ask your furloughed employees not to contact us directly – we will not be able to provide them with any information on individual claims.

We expect to be very busy so we would ask that you only call us if you can’t find what you need on GOV‌.UK or through our webchat service – this will leave our lines open for those who need our help most.

HMRC will check claims made through the scheme and will act to protect public money against anyone who makes a claim using dishonest or fraudulent information.

We’d encourage you to also protect your own credentials from potential scammers and opportunist criminal activity.