MEMBERSHIP INSIGHT
On your behalf
Policy team update
The CIPP policy team sets out details of important consultation on off-payroll working and theminimumwage
PAYE Business Tax Account In the article titled ‘Employers stay in the PAYE picture’ – which can be found in the April issue of the Employer Bulletin (http://bit.ly/2IcZvkI) – HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) asserts that: “It’s quick and convenient to check your liabilities and track your payments. The ‘PAYE for employers’ section of the Business Tax Account shows your account both annually and month by month. On your payments history page you can see each individual payment recorded so you know we’ve received it.” Anecdotal evidence from members and employers however tells us that there is still much discontent with the accuracy and reliability of the Business Tax Account (or ‘dashboard,’ as it is also simply called). To try and get a handle on the level of dissatisfaction on the results the dashboard provides, we ran a poll on our website in May, to which we received 232 responses revealing that when checking their PAYE-for-employers section: ● 28% say results are never accurate ● 31% say results are sometimes accurate, and ● 10% say the results are now accurate having established a regular pattern. However, 16% have never checked their section and 15% have given up checking. Of the 31% who indicated that results are sometimes accurate, we would hope that within that group there are some who find 100% accuracy, to add to the 10% group who are now accurate
after establishing a regular pattern. It is, however, very disconcerting to see that almost the same amount, 28%, find that results are never accurate; confirming the unrest that we have found to be out there with some users of the dashboard. Our polls are limited as they do not cater for follow-up questions, but this is certainly an area which requires further investigation. We have fed these results on to our contacts within HMRC and will bring you updates as and when we can on this topic. Ethnicity pay gap reporting Back in 2017, the Race in the workplace: the McGregor-Smith review (http:// bit.ly/2wsLtn0) (‘the 2017 review’) recommended that the government should legislate to introduce mandatory reporting of ethnicity data. Recommendations on monitoring however tells us that there is still much discontent with the accuracy and reliability of the Business Tax Account... ...evidence from members and employers
ethnicity and pay include the following: ● Listed companies and all businesses and public bodies with more than fifty employees should publish five-year aspirational targets and report against these annually. They should also publish a breakdown of employees by race and pay band. ● All employers should take positive action to improve reporting rates amongst their workforce, explaining why supplying data will improve diversity and the business as a whole. ● ● All listed companies and businesses employing more than fifty people should publish workforce data broken down by race and pay band. At the time, the government said that the case had been made for ethnicity reporting and it expected businesses to do this voluntarily. It did, however, ask Business in the Community to assess what steps employers have taken to haul down workplace barriers and harness the talent of a diverse workforce. In 2018, a one-year-on review of how employers in the UK are performing against the 2017 review’s recommendations (http://bit. ly/2KcGb7f) found that barriers persist in the workplace. This review (‘the 2018 review’) included a number of calls to action for business, and contributes to the government’s industrial strategy (http://bit.ly/2IdZ5rM) goals of boosting productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and increase the earning power of people throughout the UK with investment in skills, industries
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | July/August 2019 | Issue 52
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