The employment allowance was introduced in April 2014 to incentivise recruitment in general but especially for smaller employers, who are most likely to feel the benefit. It is worth up to £3,000 per year to set against an employer’s Class 1 national insurance bill.

Since 2014, the allowance has been tweaked to target it more narrowly and, with more changes due from 6thApril 2020, it is important to review whether you are still eligible to claim.

Who can claim?

Most employers with a liability to pay employer (secondary) national insurance are eligible including:

• Sole traders, partnerships and companies
• Charities and those with charitable status such as schools, academies and universities
• Employers of care or support workers (from 2015/16 onwards).

These broad categories are limited by a number of exclusions intended to target the relief.

Who cannot claim?

The following employers are not entitled to the allowance:

PSCs or MSCs

Where a personal service company (PSC) or managed service company (MSC) is subject to the intermediaries’ legislation (IR35) and there is a deemed payment of employment income, the employment allowance is not available against any secondary contributions that arise on the deemed payment. The allowance is still available where the company has employees in its own right.

Single director company

This restriction was introduced from 6th April 2016. Where the only employee paid above the secondary national insurance threshold is also a director of the company, the allowance is not available.

Confusingly, while referred to as the ‘single director company’ restriction, this can also apply in a company which has two or more directors but where only one of those directors is on the payroll and there are no other employees. 

If the company has another employee or director where a secondary national insurance liability arises at some point in the year, then the allowance becomes available again in full.

Large employers

From 6th April 2020, there will be further restrictions to target the relief to smaller employers. Where the employer’s total secondary national insurances are more than £100,000 in 2019/20, then no allowance will be available in 2020/21. Each year, the availability of the allowance will be tested by looking at the contributions in the previous year. HMRC estimates this will affect around 7% of employers currently claiming the allowance.

For most businesses, it will be clear whether they are affected. For those on the cusp of £100,000 in 2019/20, then the timing of (say) bonuses in that year could determine entitlement in the payroll for April 2020.

Public bodies

Public bodies or businesses where 50% or more of their work relates to work outsourced from the public sector cannot claim the allowance, unless the employer is also a charity.

This category includes local councils, health authorities and independent business carrying out a public body duty such as refuse collection. It does not affect businesses that supply services such as cleaning or IT support to public bodies.

Employers of domestic workers

The allowance is only available where the employee is exclusively providing personal care to someone who needs support due to age or physical/mental illness. Generally, an employer of private staff such as a nanny, cook or gardener, is not entitled to the allowance.

Connected complexity  

The total value of employment allowance that can be claimed is restricted where two or more companies, which include LLPs, are connected. Similar provisions apply where two charities are connected. In this case, only one of the connected companies can claim.  

Two companies will be connected if one controls the other, or both are under common control of the same person(s) at the start of the year of claim.

A company can also be connected to the company(s) of associates of the controlling parties if they are commercially interdependent: for example, one provides financial support to the other or they share customers, premises, management or employees. For example, a husband and wife each with their own company could be entitled to only one allowance between them if the two companies are commercially interdependent.

Various schemes to try and divide employees between multiple companies to facilitate the claim of multiple allowances have been blocked by this rule. 

Summary

The employment allowance is a valuable relief for small businesses so it was perhaps inevitable that complexity would be added over time. It is also costly to get it wrong so care is needed, particularly over the connected company rules, to ensure that all employers claiming are still entitled to the allowance.

At Guilford Accounting we provide a full payroll service including assessing and monitoring an employers eligibility to claim the employment allowance. For more information click here.

 

Noel Guilford