Page 22, paragraph 67. In this case, your pensionable pay would be basic pay only. Whatever you decide on, make sure your pension company will accept the calculation.
A company with workers has to complete automatic enrolment. All companies with workers and without a PAYE scheme have a staging date of April 2017.
A company with only directors has no workers if all directors don't have a contract of employment or contract of service. If you have no workers, you don't stage. Normally you'd notify TPR that you don't have a staging date but I guess in this case you could just not tell them anything. You might want to ask them directly.
The actual check for workers is a little more complex, but the above is a good general guide. Full details are available from TPR:
You start assessment and deductions from 1st May. You have 6 weeks to tell the employees and the pension company what happened but you must start deductions immediately. In practice, AE means the employer puts the employees into the pension automatically and tells them about it afterwards.
If you're a monthly payroll you may not be able to complete the assessment until you run the May payroll, which takes up a good chunk of your 6 week time limit.
The declaration of compliance tells TPR what you did on the staging date. The 5 month deadline is to allow for:
3 month postponement from staging date
6 weeks to complete enrolment (though pensions don't take 6 weeks to start in payroll)
2-3 weeks to complete the declaration
You don't need to wait to complete the declaration, particularly if you're not postponing.
In order to not operate a scheme, all employees must be paid below the LEL and must be able to declare they have no other job.
If one of the employees finds a second job, the first employer now must operate a PAYE scheme. I don't know offhand which side is responsible for working out there's now a second job, but I'd guess the employer is meant to check at some interval.
All payments must be reported through RTI when you're operating a PAYE scheme, regardless of the level of pay or age of the employee. There isn't an exception for under 16s. You don't need an NI number for RTI, though the employer is required to record it if the employee has one.
In your case B a PAYE scheme is now needed and all payments to all employees must be reported.
The Universal Credits case you mention isn't the same as the examples you've given. It's only to cover cases where an employer isn't operating a scheme and is making payments to staff., which is necessary because RTI is how information for Universal Credits is normally acquired by DWP.
Alternate NI is effectively an interim calculation allowed by HMRC that evens out the net pay for directors with a flat salary. The final calculation of the year must be an annual calculation based on the YTD figures.
In software this is often done automatically in month 12 and can lead to large swings in NI if the director hasn't received a flat salary all year, e.g. bonus payments. It's also possible to see it go the other way and receive a refund of NI paid during the year.
Earning £10,000 in the year isn't actually relevant, only exceeding £833 in a single period. As an example, paying £833.01 would make them an eligible jobholder. Paying £833 makes them a non-eligible jobholder.
The Employee ID that is generated by the software when setting up a new employee is required for RTI purposes and HMRC identifies this code with the employee.
Actually, HMRC don't require a payroll ID unless an employee has two employments with the same employer. In practice most third party software uses payroll IDs as a mandatory feature, partly due to how poorly HMRC communicated the use of the payroll ID before RTI began. As an example, HMRC's basic tools (or whatever it's called now) allows you to set up, pay and file employees without using an RTI payroll ID anywhere.
Payroll IDs can be changed at any time, you just need to include the indicator in the FPS to tell HMRC you've changed the ID. You also provide the old ID in the same submission.
Duplication does happen on 6th April too but it's much less noticeable. The old employments continue into the new year and the new employments you've created start in the new year. Only the new employments submit figures for the new year so you don't get any complications with debt management chasing payments. HMRC are likely to eventually close the old employments from inactivity if you haven't marked them as irregular. You may see some split tax codes at worst.
Payroll IDs are unique per person, not per company. For example, it's OK to have an employee ID 1 on John Smith as well as an employee ID 1 on Jane Jones. In practice most software won't allow this but HMRC don't have a problem with it. If they fail to match the personal details of an employee then they'll create a new employment even if the ID is the same. This can come about because of errors in NI numbers, dates of birth, addresses and differences in how the name is entered.
That normally accounts for cases where a couple of employees fail to change ID correctly in a large payroll that otherwise has no problems. You can also have problems if you include the new starter indicator in your FPS, which causes some cases HMRC say shouldn't be possible - two employments with the same payroll ID for the same person.
You can send it now with the YTD total. HMRC's payment system will allocate the full amount of the new recoveries to the current tax month, regardless of when it was originally for.
My answers
The 'standard' is currently 1%/1% of qualifying earnings. DC schemes can certify using a few other methods:
http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/detailed-guidance-4.pdf
Page 22, paragraph 67. In this case, your pensionable pay would be basic pay only. Whatever you decide on, make sure your pension company will accept the calculation.
Workers
A company with workers has to complete automatic enrolment. All companies with workers and without a PAYE scheme have a staging date of April 2017.
A company with only directors has no workers if all directors don't have a contract of employment or contract of service. If you have no workers, you don't stage. Normally you'd notify TPR that you don't have a staging date but I guess in this case you could just not tell them anything. You might want to ask them directly.
The actual check for workers is a little more complex, but the above is a good general guide. Full details are available from TPR:
http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/detailed-guidance-1.pdf
Staging date = deductions
You start assessment and deductions from 1st May. You have 6 weeks to tell the employees and the pension company what happened but you must start deductions immediately. In practice, AE means the employer puts the employees into the pension automatically and tells them about it afterwards.
If you're a monthly payroll you may not be able to complete the assessment until you run the May payroll, which takes up a good chunk of your 6 week time limit.
The declaration of compliance tells TPR what you did on the staging date. The 5 month deadline is to allow for:
3 month postponement from staging date
6 weeks to complete enrolment (though pensions don't take 6 weeks to start in payroll)
2-3 weeks to complete the declaration
You don't need to wait to complete the declaration, particularly if you're not postponing.
PAYE scheme
In order to not operate a scheme, all employees must be paid below the LEL and must be able to declare they have no other job.
If one of the employees finds a second job, the first employer now must operate a PAYE scheme. I don't know offhand which side is responsible for working out there's now a second job, but I'd guess the employer is meant to check at some interval.
All payments must be reported through RTI when you're operating a PAYE scheme, regardless of the level of pay or age of the employee. There isn't an exception for under 16s. You don't need an NI number for RTI, though the employer is required to record it if the employee has one.
In your case B a PAYE scheme is now needed and all payments to all employees must be reported.
The Universal Credits case you mention isn't the same as the examples you've given. It's only to cover cases where an employer isn't operating a scheme and is making payments to staff., which is necessary because RTI is how information for Universal Credits is normally acquired by DWP.
Alternate NI is effectively an interim calculation allowed by HMRC that evens out the net pay for directors with a flat salary. The final calculation of the year must be an annual calculation based on the YTD figures.
In software this is often done automatically in month 12 and can lead to large swings in NI if the director hasn't received a flat salary all year, e.g. bonus payments. It's also possible to see it go the other way and receive a refund of NI paid during the year.
Second job and LEL
If a PAYE scheme exists, all payments must be reported through RTI.
If any employee is paid above the LEL or has a second job (regardless of the income level of this or the other job), a PAYE scheme must be operated.
A and B: yes, scheme needed due to second job.
Threshold for AE
You'd need to drop to £833 a month. The assessment process only looks at earnings in a single period to determine status and due to some roundings in the table the monthly figure is £833:
http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/automatic-enrolment-earnings-thre...
Earning £10,000 in the year isn't actually relevant, only exceeding £833 in a single period. As an example, paying £833.01 would make them an eligible jobholder. Paying £833 makes them a non-eligible jobholder.
Payroll ID usually not mandatory for HMRC
Actually, HMRC don't require a payroll ID unless an employee has two employments with the same employer. In practice most third party software uses payroll IDs as a mandatory feature, partly due to how poorly HMRC communicated the use of the payroll ID before RTI began. As an example, HMRC's basic tools (or whatever it's called now) allows you to set up, pay and file employees without using an RTI payroll ID anywhere.
ID changes
Payroll IDs can be changed at any time, you just need to include the indicator in the FPS to tell HMRC you've changed the ID. You also provide the old ID in the same submission.
Duplication does happen on 6th April too but it's much less noticeable. The old employments continue into the new year and the new employments you've created start in the new year. Only the new employments submit figures for the new year so you don't get any complications with debt management chasing payments. HMRC are likely to eventually close the old employments from inactivity if you haven't marked them as irregular. You may see some split tax codes at worst.
Payroll IDs are unique per person, not per company. For example, it's OK to have an employee ID 1 on John Smith as well as an employee ID 1 on Jane Jones. In practice most software won't allow this but HMRC don't have a problem with it. If they fail to match the personal details of an employee then they'll create a new employment even if the ID is the same. This can come about because of errors in NI numbers, dates of birth, addresses and differences in how the name is entered.
That normally accounts for cases where a couple of employees fail to change ID correctly in a large payroll that otherwise has no problems. You can also have problems if you include the new starter indicator in your FPS, which causes some cases HMRC say shouldn't be possible - two employments with the same payroll ID for the same person.
YTD total
You can send it now with the YTD total. HMRC's payment system will allocate the full amount of the new recoveries to the current tax month, regardless of when it was originally for.