Self-assessments and Statutory Sick Pay Reminders: January Newsletter
Welcome to 2022. We wish you a very happy and merry new year!
Please remember to send us your self-assessment information if you haven’t done your 2020.2021 self-assessment and would like Anlo to assist with your return.
The deadline is the 31st of January 2022 to file your return. But HMRC has issued correspondence that they will allow taxpayers until the end of February 2022 to file their tax returns without any penalties if they have a reasonable excuse to file the return late.
The new HMRC guidance also gives taxpayers time till the 1st of April 2022 to pay their tax liabilities in full or set-up a payment plan. Read below for the time to pay scheme.
Time to Pay – Self-assessments – Self-serve limit remains at £30,000
The self-serve time to pay arrangement, which was increased during the pandemic is still £30,000.
If you are struggling to pay your 2020/2021 self-assessment tax liability by the 31st of January 2022, then you can set up a time to pay arrangement online.
The requirements are:
You must have filed your return for 2020/2021
You owe HMRC less than £30,000
Are within the 60 days of payment deadline
You plan to pay the debt off within 12 months or less
If you owe more than £30,000 you can phone HMRC on 0300 200 3822 and make payment arrangements over the phone.
To avoid the 5% late payment penalty, the ICAEW tax faculty has advised that you need to make arrangements within 30 days – generally we will advise best to arrange by the 1st of March 2022
Unfortunately, we can’t apply for our clients as agents as we are unable to sign on our client’s behalf or set up direct debit mandates.
If you know that your 2021/2022 tax liability will be lower, you can ask HMRC to reduce the amount you pay on account, since less will be required to meet it.
The late payment interest rate from 4 January 2022 is 2.75% on the outstanding tax liability, so please act if you think you will owe self-assessment tax and won’t have enough funds.
There is a good article from HMRC’s website which explains what you can do to help yourself.
Statutory Sick Pay
If your business has been affected by employees being off sick during December due to Covid-related illness, you may be able to claim Statutory Sick Pay from day one.
Employers will be eligible for this support if they:
are UK-based;
employed fewer than 250 employees on 30 November 2021;
had a PAYE scheme on 30 November 2021; and
they have paid their employees’ COVID-related statutory sick pay (SSP).
The scheme will cover COVID-related sickness absences occurring from 21 December 2021. This scheme initially closed at the end of September 2021, but the government opened it back up again because of the high level of COVID cases and the number of people having to self-isolate.
The scheme only opens mid-January 2022 and you can use the calculator to work out how much sick-pay the employer will be able to claim.
It will be a good idea to get all the supporting documentation from the employee to keep on file i.e., dates that the employee was off, and any other evidence that the illness was Covid related.
At the moment, employees can self-certify for a period of 28 days. This means they don’t need to get medical evidence from their GP for 28 days to be able to claim statutory sick pay. Before Covid, it used to be 7 days, but was extended to relieve some of the pressure on GPs.
If Anlo does your payroll, and your business was affected by employees (including directors) being off work due to Covid (or any illness really) and you want to claim statutory sick pay, please let us know and we will include this in the payroll.
All we will need to make this claim is:
The calculation in pdf that you have prepared
The names of employee(s) for whom this will be claimed
If you have any questions, just get in touch!