[peejay]

Hi guys, and plse excuse my ignorance, been in Oz for 30 yrs doing this type of business, obviously laws vary and i was hoping you could throw some info.my way as to what sickness benefits my employees are entitled to!!,  i have been informed that after the first 3 days and if they are earning over £84 per week they can claim sickness benefits from the employer(up to a max of 28 weeks) for approx £70 per week    is this correct!!!!???   and does the employer recieve this back from NI or anywhere else???

your help is greatly appreciated,

Peejay

[dustycorner]

Hi peejay,

Thats about the gist of it. Your ability to claim it back depends on national insurance contributions paid to inland revenue it also depends on the class of national insurance contributions.

Cheers Mark.

[peejay]

thanks Mark,  so in effect we have to allow in our original quotes an extra £70 plus per week per contract, for anyone who is earning over £84 (in case this happens??? )   how can that be? , and wouldnt it be very beneficial for every employee to take advantage of this?   maybe im still missing something???   

[BSF]

Any ssp paid by you to your employees is claimed back, just like smp, tax credits etc.

Regards

Paul

[dustycorner]

Hi peejay,

Shouldn't have to price it into your contracts, if you've got staff regularly taking time off due to absence then it would be addressed using your sickness and absence policy.

Cheers  Mark.

[Phoenix]

Wait , Slow down.   

You cannot claim SSP back from the taxman unless it is worth more than 13% of your total weekly or monthly payroll.  I have just in the last 6 months had a visit from the Employers Compliance team (Mr Blairs thieves) and ended up paying back Almost £10,000 spread over a two year period where I was claiming back SSP incorrectly as like you I thought I could claim it back.

Speak to your local tax office and ask them for the relevent booklets.

I was lucky they did'nt add any interest because I was open and honest with them as my previous inspection had not picked it up three years earlier, they can charge up to 8% interest.

Please seek advice from your tax office now

[Phoenix]

The booklet you should read is Inland revenue E14 (what to do if your employee is sick) Page 22, this shows you how to do your workings out.

Good Luck

[BSF]

Wait , Slow down.

You cannot claim SSP back from the taxman unless it is worth more than 13% of your total weekly or monthly payroll. I have just in the last 6 months had a visit from the Employers Compliance team (Mr Blairs thieves) and ended up paying back Almost £10,000 spread over a two year period where I was claiming back SSP incorrectly as like you I thought I could claim it back.

Speak to your local tax office and ask them for the relevent booklets.

I was lucky they did'nt add any interest because I was open and honest with them as my previous inspection had not picked it up three years earlier, they can charge up to 8% interest.

Please seek advice from your tax office now

 

With respect, you must have done something very wrong, if one of your staff qualifies for statutory sick pay, you do get it back!

Just like smp tax credits etc, do you honestly believe that if someone is off sick for say six months that your business funds the ssp, yes its your duty to pay it, but you do get it back, believe me you do, if you have someone off on maternity leave you pay them and you get it back, all this information go’s on your p35.

I think you may be getting a little mixed up, if you’re a small business you can apply for a grant from the IR to fund it, but obviously then you have to declare this on the p35.

Please don’t post misleading information because other members might start worrying a little .

Regards

Paul

[Prestige1]

I think Phoenix is correct. I only ever claimed a percentage of SSP paid to an employee, you cant claim it all back. Phil

[Prestige1]

Heres a clip from the Inland revenue web site. there is a SSP calculator on there as well. my sage programme does it for me.

"Recovering Statutory Sick Pay
Can I recover the SSP paid to my employees?
You may be able to recover some, or all, of the SSP you
have paid. The Percentage Threshold Scheme (PTS) is
designed to help employers who have a high proportion of their workforce sick at any one time so it is not restricted only to small businesses.

Unless you qualify under the PTS, you are not entitled to
recover any of the SSP you pay to your employees."

I never been able to claim all back. regards Phil

[Fox]

Yep - I can confirm that Phoenix is correct.  You can only claim back SSP if the amount is more than 13% of your payroll.  However employees can only claim SSP if they have paid NI for 12 weeks or more.

This leads to the question - do we employ full time staff or part time, under the threshold?

In a way we are lucky that we can run on mostly part time staff if we wish to in this business.  Personally I feel that we benefit from a mixture say 70% part time and 30% full time, this way you have a good contingency for when people do let you down.

Fox

[Phoenix]

BSF

What I posted was not, I repeat not, misleading. 

I suggest you read the Revenue Booklet.  Under the Percentage Threshold Scheme (PTS), and I employ 70 odd people I was not able to claim anything back for example if my payroll is £10,000+ per week (which it is) then to claim back SSP I would have to be paying out in excess of £1300 per week in SSP before I could claim anything back.  Which is in excess of 16 employees of sick each week for the full week.

Yes if someone is off sick for 6 months, which I have had, I have had to fund it.  (Mr Blairs thieves again) because it was under 13% of my payroll.

I agree you can claim back SMP, WFTC, WTC, just like the CIS Card system.

You can apply for a grant for SSP if you are a small business (basically a loan to help you out with cashflow) but you declare it on your P35 and end up paying it back.

Sorry for the long reply, but this was the simple way of explaining it.

Regards

Graham

[Phoenix]

I also now run SAGE payroll together with Sage Account, the best payroll and Accounts package around, although not cheap.

Thanks Foxy and Prestige 1 for the backup.

[BSF]

Hang on before you get back on your high horse again, your information is very misleading , I do understand how it works even though I do admit to using a payroll service.

The PTS doesn’t go off your £10,000 per wk payroll its on the amount of gross class 1 nic liability in the month, if this was £200 13% of this is £26

If your total ssp for the tax month was £150 the total is more than the 13% nic figure by £124 in this instance you’d get back this amount, then you would pay the IR £76 for the month.

In this case most of the ssp has been recovered, in others all is recovered depending on figures.

90% of my staff wouldn’t qualify for ssp, so I don’t really have any problem.

Wait , Slow down.

You cannot claim SSP back from the taxman unless it is worth more than 13% of your total weekly or monthly payroll. I have just in the last 6 months had a visit from the Employers Compliance team (Mr Blairs thieves) and ended up paying back Almost £10,000 spread over a two year period where I was claiming back SSP incorrectly as like you I thought I could claim it back.

Speak to your local tax office and ask them for the relevent booklets.

I was lucky they did'nt add any interest because I was open and honest with them as my previous inspection had not picked it up three years earlier, they can charge up to 8% interest.

Please seek advice from your tax office now

You expect me to believe you have had to pay back £10,000 of  ssp that you claimed back incorrectly, rubbish!

Remember its not on your payroll amount each month (in your case about £43k) it’s the employers share of class 1 contributions, in your case your wage bill would have to be a wee bit higher in order for you to owe them £10,000 in two years, I suggest you contact your tax office!

Regards

Paul

[Phoenix]

Paul,

I dont have a high horse I'm only 3'6" tall. 

Seriously, I have paid back £10745.78 for 2003/2004 & 2004/2005. 

£6973.34 for 03/04 and £3772.44 for 04/05 with GROSS NIC (as the booklet says not what you suggested quote "it’s the employers share of class 1 contributions", My gross NIC came to £125,389.68 in contributions for 04/05. This should give you some idea of my payroll. (£1.1 million)

In other words for me to claim anything back in 2004/2005 I would have to fork out £16,300 (13%) in SSP before I could claim anything back.

Believe me Paul (Mr Blairs thieves were here for two days ) they know what their talking about.  They pulled all our payroll records and printouts for the two year period.  They even came back three weeks later to explain how they arrived at their figures.

Won't make that mistake again.  I hope people do not make the same mistake as I did

[Phoenix]

Sorry I may had mislead some people as I stated payroll in my first posting about this subject, what i meant was Gross NIC.

[Phoenix]

Paul,

Why do you use payroll services? do you get it at a cheap rate?,  sage is very easy to use.

Regards

Graham.

[BSF]

Hi Graham,

I use a payroll service because I dont have time to do it, it costs me about £2 per employee, no mistakes are made.

You paid £125k in nic in 2004-2005, then why did you post this: because your turnover was only 250k, your sums just dont add up.....

5 Fully equipped Vehicles, 20 Cleaning Operatives, 1 Operations Manager, 1 Sales & Account Person, fully equipped office and been in business 5 years. Annual turnover 250k approximatley.  I,m not going to tell you my profit margins though!!!!!

They were serious and I have had 8 serious enquiries in about 8 months, forecast in the portfolio was 350k for the 12 month period, although we are acually going to achieve better than that due to my new sales person who we took on 6 months ago.  This is the reason I'm no longer selling, however, I've not told the Company who are trying to sell my business.

do they

If your going to b######t people think about what your posting.

Regards

Paul

[BSF]

Yep - I can confirm that Phoenix is correct.  You can only claim back SSP if the amount is more than 13% of your payroll.  However employees can only claim SSP if they have paid NI for 12 weeks or more.

This leads to the question - do we employ full time staff or part time, under the threshold?

In a way we are lucky that we can run on mostly part time staff if we wish to in this business.  Personally I feel that we benefit from a mixture say 70% part time and 30% full time, this way you have a good contingency for when people do let you down.

Fox

Fox,

I hope you have taken note of my reply/s Phoenix was infact incorrect on this matter, so your confirmation was wrong.

Regards

Paul.... BSF

[dustycorner]

Well peejay,

The last few posts have made it has clear as mud lol

Cheers Mark.