As you’ve no doubt already heard, the government has introduced many schemes to help businesses and their employees get through the next few months with the fewest financial implications possible.
One of the grants available to business is the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. If you can’t maintain your current workforce, you can put your employees on temporary leave (furlough them) and apply for the scheme which will cover 80% of their usual monthly wage, up to £2,500 a month.
Any entity with a UK payroll can apply including businesses, charities, recruitment agencies and public authorities. You can find the full list of who is eligible on the gov.uk website.
If you’re planning to take advantage of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, please note that you must have created and started a PAYE payroll scheme on or before 28 February 2020.
As well as this, you will need to register for online PAYE. Once you’ve enrolled, you will receive an ePAYE reference number, which will grant you access to the HMRC funding portal. The portal is due to go live on 20 April and it can take up to 10 days for your activation code to come through. This means it’s important to act now if you haven’t already. You can register for online PAYE here.
If you already have an HMRC online account, you can simply add PAYE facility to your account.
You need to ensure that this is being done for you by whoever processes your payroll. There’s further advice on the gov.uk website about PAYE online for employers if you didn’t register on time.
If you need help enrolling for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with PKB and we’ll be more than happy to help.
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