In his Autumn Statement earlier today, the Chancellor George Osborne made a few announcements that are worth noting by employers and employees.
Onshore Intermediaries
Measures will be put in place to prevent employment intermediaries from being used to avoid UK employment taxes by disguising employment as self-employment. The government will consult on strengthening existing legislation to ensure that the correct amount of tax and NICs are paid where workers are in effect employed, tackling what George Osborne referred to as “false self-employment”. We await further commentary and details of the consultation with interest.
Dual Contracts
Legislation will be introduced in Finance Act 2014 to prevent the use of “dual contracts”, i.e. high earning non-domiciled individuals creating an artificial division of the duties of one employment between contracts in the UK and overseas.
National Insurance Contributions
From 6 April 2015, employers will no longer be required to pay employer’s national insurance contributions on earnings paid to any employee under the age of 21. This will be capped at the upper earnings limit (£41,865 for 2014/15). It appears that younger employees will still be liable for employee contributions.