When will the Budget be held? 12 December 2019
The Budget was initially scheduled to be held on 6 November 2019 with Sajid Javid at the helm but was postponed due to the call for a general election, which is now taking place on 12 December 2019.
The situation has left many payroll and finance professionals wondering when the Budget will be delayed until, and how this will affect them in their roles. This is all dependent on who wins the election and whether there is a coalition government or not. The Conservatives have confirmed that, should they be re-elected, they will not hold a Budget until February 2020 as they intend to complete Brexit on 31 January 2020 and releasing a Budget prior to that point seems redundant. Labour shadow chancellor, John McDonnell has also confirmed a February Budget and in the event of a Labour win, this will go ahead on 5 February 2020. As the new tax year begins on 6 April 2020, this leaves very little time for software developers to make amendments to thresholds within payroll systems and a very small timeframe for payrollers to prepare for the upcoming changes. A popular theory is that, due to time constraints, new tax rates and limits won’t be applied until 18 May 2020. This used to be the way of implementing changes at the turn of a tax year for a brief period prior to the current process in which new thresholds take effect from 6 April each year. Nothing is currently set in stone and everything is subject to change. We do not know who will win the election and we therefore do not know if there will be any changes to tax or NI thresholds, or both! Hopefully once the results of the election have been released on 13 December 2019, there will be more clarity on the issue for payroll and finance professionals ahead of the Christmas period.
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Queen’s Speech December 2019: Key points for payroll professionals 20 December 2019
As a result of the Conservative party being re-elected last week, the Queen delivered a speech on 19 December 2019 that sets out the government’s policies and proposed legislative programme for the new parliamentary session. The speech was not significantly different from the one delivered in October but the CIPP has selected some of the key points from the background briefing notes that may be of particular interest to payroll professionals.
The four key areas of interest for payrollers would be proposals covered in the Employment Bill, the Pension Schemes Bill, the section of the document that discusses the cost of living and English devolution.
The Employment Bill will ‘protect and enhance workers’ rights as the UK leaves the EU.’ There is a focus on encouraging fairness in the workplace along with the promotion of flexible working and in strengthening workers’ ability to get redress for poor treatment by creating a new, singular enforcement body. This builds on the work of Matthew Taylor and the Good Work Plan. There will be better support in place for working families and additional measures to protect those in low-paid work. The Pension Schemes Bill aims to ‘support pension saving in the 21 st century, putting protection of people’s pensions at its heart.’ A framework will be established for the implementation of pension dashboards, so that people can better predict what income they can expect to receive in later life. The Bill also proposes that The Pensions Regulator (TPR) will have greater powers to tackle and combat non-compliance with legislation around auto-enrolment and pension duties. Within the briefing notes, there is much discussion relating to English devolution. This means that the different regions across England will choose how to allocate how investment is spent, as the priorities of one nation may drastically differ from those of another.
The Chancellor, Sajid Javid has pledged that the National Living Wage will increase to an expected £10.50 an hour by 2024 and will be available to those aged 21 and over within five years. The government has stated that they will raise
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Payroll: need to know
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