I completely agree. I've lost clients that have had to close and for those who struggle on I'm doing twice the work for less money, knowing they may not be able to pay me anyway. But if I furlough myself I can't help them at all, even though my non-incorporated peers can continue to work and still get the government grants. It's nothing to do with the salary/dividend issue. I could live with that, but there's a striking unfairness in not allowing company directors to maintain even a little of their business.
As I understand it, the minimum length of furlough is 3 weeks and it appears that staff can move in and out of furlough. So is there any reason why a director couldn't furlough for 3 weeks, then go back for a week to process payroll and catch up with what little work there is, then furlough again?
This puts a slightly different slant on it, but if the attendees all made large donations, you'd need to be sure they met the benefit rules - the item they received must be valued at less than 25% of the donation. Also they'd each need to complete a Gift Aid declaration themselves. If you are relying on the small donations scheme (GASDS), you would be declaring that no one paid more than £30. In both cases, the transaction is between the attendee and the charity, not the organiser.
The consequences of getting it wrong? HMRC can go back to the "donor" and get them to pay back the value of the Gift Aid claimed. The charity would be hurt more. If this donation makes up, say, 50% of the total GA claimed and is found to be ineligible, HMRC will deduct 50% of all future claims on the basis that the charity has inadequate processes in place to prevent this happening.
Hopefully the charity would have been aware of what this kind lady was trying to do and simply ignored the tick box.
If it was advertised as “craft sale in aid of a registered charity” then there was no intention that the lady was trading to make personal gain so the money was never hers to donate, therefore not gift aidable.
I can’t see anything in the original post to suggest that the lady herself made and donated all of the goods and it seems unlikely. If she did, I would agree with your statement, but was it so?
That’s good to hear for those like me who signed up for the trial (last December), spent many hours on the phone to HMRC and IT technicians to resolve issues with browser settings and screen resolution (because the original screens overfilled the page and had no scroll bars), spoke with bewildered HMRC staff who had cancelled DD mandates without understanding their own software, completed endless feedback forms and took part in webinars. So it’s all working fine now? Let’s hope that you can gain from our pain, but please don’t assume we were too stupid to follow instructions or just making a fuss.
I've had exactly this situation, not resolved and HMRC have said they have no idea what's happening. Two quarterly MTD returns so far, both with DD's supposedly in place, both failed, both times paid by bank transfer.
My answers
I completely agree. I've lost clients that have had to close and for those who struggle on I'm doing twice the work for less money, knowing they may not be able to pay me anyway. But if I furlough myself I can't help them at all, even though my non-incorporated peers can continue to work and still get the government grants. It's nothing to do with the salary/dividend issue. I could live with that, but there's a striking unfairness in not allowing company directors to maintain even a little of their business.
As I understand it, the minimum length of furlough is 3 weeks and it appears that staff can move in and out of furlough. So is there any reason why a director couldn't furlough for 3 weeks, then go back for a week to process payroll and catch up with what little work there is, then furlough again?
This puts a slightly different slant on it, but if the attendees all made large donations, you'd need to be sure they met the benefit rules - the item they received must be valued at less than 25% of the donation. Also they'd each need to complete a Gift Aid declaration themselves. If you are relying on the small donations scheme (GASDS), you would be declaring that no one paid more than £30. In both cases, the transaction is between the attendee and the charity, not the organiser.
The consequences of getting it wrong? HMRC can go back to the "donor" and get them to pay back the value of the Gift Aid claimed. The charity would be hurt more. If this donation makes up, say, 50% of the total GA claimed and is found to be ineligible, HMRC will deduct 50% of all future claims on the basis that the charity has inadequate processes in place to prevent this happening.
Hopefully the charity would have been aware of what this kind lady was trying to do and simply ignored the tick box.
If it was advertised as “craft sale in aid of a registered charity” then there was no intention that the lady was trading to make personal gain so the money was never hers to donate, therefore not gift aidable.
I can’t see anything in the original post to suggest that the lady herself made and donated all of the goods and it seems unlikely. If she did, I would agree with your statement, but was it so?
That’s good to hear for those like me who signed up for the trial (last December), spent many hours on the phone to HMRC and IT technicians to resolve issues with browser settings and screen resolution (because the original screens overfilled the page and had no scroll bars), spoke with bewildered HMRC staff who had cancelled DD mandates without understanding their own software, completed endless feedback forms and took part in webinars. So it’s all working fine now? Let’s hope that you can gain from our pain, but please don’t assume we were too stupid to follow instructions or just making a fuss.
MileIQ for mileage tracking, free if you have MS Office Business Premium subscription, otherwise a monthly fee.
It doesn’t matter. I only separate it to make it easier to reconcile the payroll for audit, but if you haven’t many staff just reduce Salaries.
I would create a new nominal code for SMP/SPP Recovered, near to the Wages accounts in the P&L, credit that and debit PAYE.
I've had exactly this situation, not resolved and HMRC have said they have no idea what's happening. Two quarterly MTD returns so far, both with DD's supposedly in place, both failed, both times paid by bank transfer.