Moore are currently seeing an increase in investigations into National Minimum Wage (NMW) cases. HMRC appear to be taking a hard stance on any area of non-compliance. We want to make you aware of some of the common areas that employers are being picked up on, so that you can ensure your current arrangements are compliant.
- Do your employees pay for any of their own required uniform or safety equipment? This cost would be taken into account when calculating whether the employee is receiving the NMW.
- Do you charge the £1 admin fee for administering ordered payment deductions? This would be factored in when calculating whether the employee receives the NMW.
- Do you have written contracts of employments? Although advisable in any instance, HMRC will expect you to be able to prove in writing the agreed hours workable either per week, month or year. For salaried workers for example, the employer should be able to show an agreed ascertainable basic number of hours per year. This is important to allow employers to use a salary basis to pay workers otherwise HMRC will revert to a “per hour worked basis” which can affect the calculations regarding NMW.
If you think you may be affected by this, if you have Markel tax cover they provide a legal helpline that can assist with employment contract reviews and National Minimum Wage queries. This number will be in the paperwork that you received when subscribing, if you don’t have this to hand please contact the office. If you want to find out about subscribing for Markel tax cover,
please see here.
A reminder about the changes to the National Minimum Wage can be accessed
here.