Following the announcement on 16 December 2015 that the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) for 2016-17 will be set at 10%, HMRC’s Software Developers Support Team issued some reminders:
For the 2016-17 tax year the overall rates of income tax for Scottish taxpayers will remain the same as for taxpayers within the rest of the United Kingdom (rUK). ‘S’ tax codes must still be applied where received from HMRC. Any SRIT tax codes issued electronically for 2016-17 will contain an ‘S’ within the Tax Regime indicator in accordance with the published technical specifications. There will be no Scottish equivalent of the NT code. HMRC will not be issuing any SNT codes, so please do not allow your users to populate the Tax Regime field with an ‘S’ when an NT code is in use. Appendix B of the PAYE Tax Table Routines and Free of Tax specifications will be updated shortly to show the Scottish rates/parameters. References to the SVR (Scottish Variable Rate) will be removed and replaced with SRIT but the method described in the specification remains unchanged.
Scottish Agricultural Wages Board to be retained 24 December 2015
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead has announced that the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board will continue in Scotland.
The decision follows a review and public consultation on the future of the body, which has the power to set minimum pay rates, holiday entitlement and certain other conditions of service for agricultural workers in Scotland. Orders made by the Board have the force of law. New Scottish Government analysis found evidence that scrapping the Board would reduce wages, particularly for young apprentices and migrant workers. No evidence was found to demonstrate that abolishing the board would help create more jobs in farming. On the contrary, agricultural job growth in Scotland would appear to have outpaced that of England, where the wages board was abolished in 2013.
The Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead said:
“Workers must be paid a fair wage for the job that they do. As well as being the right thing to do it is important in attracting people into the industry – which is vital for the future of Scottish agriculture.
“I have considered carefully the results of this review and responses to our consultation, in which a variety of views were expressed.
“The evidence in favour of retaining the Scottish Agriculture Wages Board is compelling. It continues to perform an important role in protecting the rights of farm workers - many of whom are paid low wages – which in turn underpins the rural economy.
“That is why I have decided to retain the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board.”
The Scottish Agricultural Wages Board is an executive Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) established under the Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Act 1949. Similar arrangements for determining minimum rates of pay and other conditions for agricultural workers exist in Northern Ireland and in Wales under different legislation. The legislation governing the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board specifies that its function must be reviewed periodically in order to ensure that it is delivering appropriate minimum rates of pay and other conditions of service for agricultural workers in Scotland. The Scottish Government consulted on the future of the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board in 2015, the next review is due to take place in five years’ time.
CIPP Survey: Awareness of the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) 25 January 2016
The CIPP policy team together with HMRC have put together a brief survey to establish payroll and employer readiness for the implementation of SRIT.
For one month in the autumn 2015 the CIPP policy team ran a poll on the home page of our website asking: “Do you think the introduction of the Scottish Rate of Income Tax has been sufficiently well publicised to employers and tax payers?” Yes or No?
CIPP Policy News Journal
25/04/2016, Page 412 of 453
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