16th April 2020
Yesterday (15th April 2020) the Government announced a change to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).
Previously, the scheme allowed employees who were employed on 28th February 2020 to be furloughed as long as HMRC had received notification of their employment by this date. The notification to HMRC was via the Real Time Information (RTI) submission.
The change now allows employees to be furloughed who were taken on as a new employee between 29th February 2020 and 19th March 2020. The date of 19th March 2020 is important as this is the day before the CJRS was announced.
To qualify, the employer must have submitted an RTI submission to HMRC before 19th March 2020 detailing the existence of the new employee.
This change could help employees where their employer operates weekly, fortnightly or 4-weekly payroll and where the RTI submission was submitted in line with the new requirements between 29th February 2020 and 19th March 2020.
Unfortunately, this change is unlikely to benefit new employees on monthly wages as the monthly RTI submission would have been submitted at the end of March 2020.
Important notes for employers – please let us know if you believe that the above change will affect any new employees which you employed between 29th February 2020 and 19th March 2020. It is extremely difficult for us to ascertain who this will affect so require your assistance with this.
If you do have any employees taken on between these dates and they are to be furloughed, please call the office on 01538 755866 and leave a voicemail advising which employee we need to review.
When calling the office please let us know which business you are calling from.
Also, for any business that has furloughed employees, please leave a voicemail confirming the last 3 digits of your business bank account so that we can check the information that we hold on file to help complete the furlough claim form once the portal is open. DO NOT SUPPLY BANK INFORMATION VIA EMAIL.
If you are a director on furlough, then please consider this before responding as it may invalidate your claim.
Finally, where you have furloughed employees, please ensure that you have advised us of the date of furlough for each employee as this will be required for the claim portal. If we do not have this date, then your claim will be delayed which we hope to avoid so please let us have this date.