The Job Retention Bonus – Are you Eligible?
With the law in the form of a treasury direction being published alongside the HMRC guidance, we can now successfully help you understand whether your company is eligible for the Job Retention Bonus.
Employers who are eligible to claim the bonus for employees must keep individuals who are under the CJRS employed until January 31st 2021 to help battle the unemployment crisis hitting Britain. However, employers can claim for the same employee under the JSS and receive a £1,000 bonus. If an employee has been transferred under a TUPE agreement to an employer’s payroll, the new employer must have made at least one CJRS claim for them before it finishes on 31st October 2020.
The employee must have received at least £1,560 as gross taxable pay across the three previous tax months (November, December and January)
All RTI Submissions for each of the three tax months to HMRC should have been on time and accurate for you to be eligible – getting your payroll in on time is crucial for this.
The exact rules which make employees ineligible for the scheme are;
- The employer repaid all CJRS grants claimed in respect of that individual
- The employee is not paid at least once in each of the three tax months
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Their total taxable pay does not reach £1,560 across the three months
- A leaving date has been reported on or before January 31st 2021
- The employee is placed on contractual or statutory notice of termination of their employment at any point before 31st January 2021 (This also includes termination regarding retirement)
The minimum income threshold for the scheme is £1,560.
The threshold relates to total taxable pay in a month, no matter how many times an employee is paid in a month. Employers who are payrolling benefits in kind will have a higher gross taxable pay figure as it will include the notional amount for the benefits in kind as well as their cash earnings. There is no indication in the guidance that HMRC requires payrolled benefits to be deducted from taxable pay.
We recommend looking at the HMRC guidance here which include examples on whether or not your employees would be eligible. The examples demonstrate how the minimum income threshold is used for Job Retention bonus claims.
The examples may not directly reflect your circumstances but can be used to see how the minimum income threshold is applied in some common employee scenarios.
Please note that we will be claiming this on behalf of all our clients that are eligible.
For anymore advice or help on the Job Retention Bonus, please contact our team- 01254 781969