Base period for Job Retention Scheme

Guidance to employers and employees differ

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The Job Retention Scheme guidance to employers states:

Full time and part time employees

For full time and part time salaried employees, the employee’s actual salary before tax, as of 28 February should be used to calculate the 80%. Fees, commission and bonuses should not be included.

Employees whose pay varies

If the employee has been employed (or engaged by an employment business) for a full twelve months prior to the claim, you can claim for the higher of either:

the same month’s earning from the previous year

average monthly earnings from the 2019-20 tax year

If the employee has been employed for less than a year, you can claim for an average of their monthly earnings since they started work.

If the employee only started in February 2020, use a pro-rata for their earnings so far to claim.

Once you’ve worked out how much of an employee’s salary you can claim for, you must then work out the amount of Employer National Insurance Contributions and minimum automatic enrolment employer pension contributions you are entitled to claim.

So this suggests that the 28th Feb salary is used if employed for less than 12 months but that the past 12 months is looked at if the employee has been there that long.

HOWEVER - The "Full time and part time employees" paragraph above is omitted from the guidance to employees. This states as follows:

How your monthly earnings are calculated

If you’ve been employed (or engaged by an employment business in the case of agency workers) for a full year, employers will claim for the higher of either:

the amount you earned in the same month last year

an average of your monthly earnings from the last year

If you’ve been employed for less than a year, employers will claim for an average of your monthly earnings since you started work. The same arrangements apply if your monthly pay varies such as if you are on a zero-hour contract.

If you started work in February 2020, your employer will pro-rata your earnings from that month.

Bonuses, commissions and fees are not included as part of your monthly earnings.”

So this suggests that the basis for all employees is the past 12 months or average if less than 12 months – Nowhere in the employee guidance does it mention the salary at 28 February. Does anyone know the correct position?

 

Replies (6)

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By paulwakefield1
27th Mar 2020 13:19

Apart from the very first sentence of your quote. ;-)

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Replying to paulwakefield1:
RLI
By lionofludesch
27th Mar 2020 14:06

paulwakefield1 wrote:

Apart from the very first sentence of your quote. ;-)

No - that's the employer guidance. Which is the point he's making.

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Replying to lionofludesch:
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By paulwakefield1
27th Mar 2020 14:15

Reply in haste, repent at leisure. :-)

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By paul.benny
27th Mar 2020 14:11

The guidance has been rushed out and therefore it's hardly surprising there are some relatively minor inconsistencies. Until the actual process is laid out, that will be as good as it gets.

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JCACE
By jcace
27th Mar 2020 14:13

I suspect that the employee guidance has been copied and pasted from the employer guidance, but with that glaring omission.

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By insolventnl
27th Mar 2020 14:30

I think you should go with the employer guidance because its employers who need to process this so where they spent more of their time writing it out.

Also ommission is something that can be done (mistake) and more likely then writing in something which should not have been there.

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