HMRC furlough mistake adds to employers’ burden
An error embedded in HMRC’s CJRS calculator means employers may need to recalculate furlough claims for January. A new tweak of the CJRS calculation also applies from March 2021.
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Hi Kate - I don't understand this sentence. Surely if employer contributions reduce taxable pay, then that is, by definition a salary sacrifice?
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In the additional guidance HMRC points out the obvious difference between a net pay arrangement pension scheme, where employer contributions reduce taxable pay as they are tax relieved but do not affect reference pay
I look forward to the run of appeals against CJRS reclaims levied against anyone that used the calculator before this issue was fixed. This is farcical.
Sorry but I disagree with your statement about salary sacrifice! The original HMRC guidance is clear that it is still possible with employee consent. Unless HMRC have made a retrospective change I feel you might want to look at the point made again.
Which bit do you disagree with? And what is "possible with employee consent"?
Pre-salary-sacrifice Gross Pay(PGP) is contractually reduced (by the Salary Sacrifice agreement) to New Gross Pay (NGP). Then along comes CJRS ... where the claim amount (for the furloughed hours) is NGP * 80% (not PGP * 80%). And the full claim must be paid over to the employee WITHOUT deduction (other than of course for statutory deductions).
As an old mentor used to reiterate ... Salary Sacrifice is a contractual reduction in salary, NOT a deduction from it.
A 30% penalty for HMRC, for lack of reasonable care. And they should think themselves lucky, it would have been more under the old system just for size and gravity.
HMRC’s CJRS calculator: I saw the warning about HMRC Calculator error on your site, nothing on the HMRC site as far as I can see nor any explanation from them of WHAT THE ACTUAL ERROR WAS. Although our January 2021 Furlough claim didn't appear to fit the criteria, I thought I would go and do a check on one of our employees claims as I remember some peculiarities on the site in January. I noticed the calculator version hasn't updated at all since my calculation printout done 10/01/21(basic IT protocol??). I entered the data for the employee twice getting two different answers(yes, the data entered was exactly the same), but the printed out calculation was different in structure.
I am thinking: What was the original error then? Is the error fixed, if so why is there no indication the version has updated/corrected on the site? Is there still an underlying error. I note that some of the calculations have also changed in terms of the order of applying the calculating methods as well. All a bit of a mess isn't it? Back to my spreadsheet I think!!!!
There's no excuse for "no indication the version has updated/corrected on the site" ... and, whilst the error is reported to be fixed, there can be no guarantee that there aren't any further errors remaining.
However, you ask what the actual error was.
To which the answer is it only affected claims for pay periods in Jan 2021 - where:
* An employee was not on a fixed salary AND you used that employee’s pay from Jan 2019 (instead of 2020) as reference pay AND that employee’s pay in Jan 2019 was different to their pay in Jan 2020.
And the error?
* The employee’s Jan 2020 pay should have been used as reference pay in the CJRS claim calculation ... but the online calculator wrongly directed you to use Jan 2019 pay (which if different has generated the wrong result).
So, probably a fairly limited number of affected claims. BUT the casual way in which HMRC expects employers/agents to re-check existing claims (whether or not already submitted) is more than slightly aggravating ... as is the way in which the announcement crept out in the middle of an email on multiple topics (to an unknown list of recipients)!
I must admit I have not and will not use the HMRC calculator. I tried it in the early days and the result from their calculation was £0.01 different to mine. I used my own logic and will defend it rigorously if challenged.
Has anyone had a JRS audit by HMRC? Our client received a phone call from HMRC to say that their calculation was wrong. The client asked us to assist. HMRC said that the gross figure was incorrect. We pointed out that HMRC were incorrectly using the gross wage after adjustment for employee workplace pension. Did they apologise? Did they agree that they were wrong and wasted a huge amount of time and cost? No. Their reply said "I have reviewed the information and accept the calculations provided." Is it possible that HMRC are using staff to manage furlough, who have never operated in payroll or taxation before?