CONSUTRUCTION INDUSTRY HOLIDAY SCHEME
18 January 2012 For those of you who work within the Construction Industry and have used independently managed central holiday pay funds, this is a reminder that the NICs exemption will be withdrawn from 30 October 2012. These schemes involve employers contributing to an independently managed central fund which then pays out employees' holiday pay. They are only to be used by construction sector businesses and are limited in use to those employees personally involved in construction operations. Money paid into and out of these funds is currently exempt from NICs for employers who are involved in construction operations and if the employees in question are personally involved in construction work. This NICs exemption will be withdrawn from 30 October 2012. For PAYE tax purposes, include the cost of holiday pay stamps or credits in gross pay only if the fund you use hasn't been approved by HMRC. If the fund has been approved, you can disregard these costs, as well as any holiday payments to your employees that the fund makes. This is because approved funds already deduct tax from their payments to employees. Further information can be found through the links below: HMRC - special holiday pay schemes HMRC - Class 1 NICs: Earnings of employees and office holders: Holiday pay 13 April 2011 In an appeal tribunal the court held that a redundancy scoring method constituted unlawful sex discrimination and that the claimant had been unfairly dismissed and as a result was awarded compensation for over three years' loss of earnings. Daniel Barnett’s Law Bulletin reports the following: The EAT (Underhill P) has handed down its decision in Eversheds v De Belin , which is authority for the proposition that the obligation to protect employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave under S 2(2) of the SDA 1975 is limited to treatment that is "reasonably necessary [meaning proportionate] to compensate them for the disadvantages occasioned by their condition". Thus, a colleague who is disadvantaged by the provision of a disproportionate pregnancy or maternity benefit - for example when other less discriminatory alternatives are available - would be entitled to claim sex discrimination. Accordingly, the EAT upheld the Tribunal's finding of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal where the claimant had been scored lower in a redundancy exercise than a colleague on maternity leave solely because she had been given a maximum notional score for "lock up", measuring the length of time between undertaking work and receiving payment from the client. The maternity benefit was disproportionate because there were less discriminatory Employment Tribunals PREGNANCY, POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION & POLKEY
CIPP Policy News Journal
09/10/2012, Page 29 of 234
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