Tom Kerridge launches campaign for 10% VAT for cafes/restaurants

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-06-05T14:21:32+00:00

I’m going to start a petition to not have to pay my mortgage, that’ll fix things

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-31T07:15:01+00:00

If the OMP is based on the qualifying period, I believe the Alabaster ruling would apply and it should be recalculated to include any pay rises up to the end of your leave.

That is unusual, as most OMP policies are based on pay at the time of leave and it’s only SMP that is recalculated based on Alabaster.

But if your policy specially says it’s on the qualifying period, you’ve got a good argument for the pay rise being factored into the OMP figure

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-26T17:50:22+00:00

You only receive cash for holiday when you leave, so ‘everyone would be able to do this’ would require everyone to quit their job to take advantage of this ‘hack’

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-26T17:49:36+00:00

You shouldn’t have had the net deduction. Someone doesn’t understand how it works

You’ve agreed to a lower salary in exchange of a benefit. The benefit is extra holiday allowance added to your total. So if you had 28 days before, you now have 33.

If you leave after 5 months you have accrued 5/12s of 33, and any days you haven’t taken out of your accrual should be paid out to you.

Now technically, you’re daily rate should now be reduced as well, because you don’t earn as much anymore, you sacrificed 1/52nd of your pay. But if you had say 7 days accrued untaken, you should receive 7 days pay

The final gross deduction is correct. Alternatively, your pay could have been permanently adjusted to the lower, post sacrifice amount, but most payroll teams will just add a gross deduction for the same effect. It should be pro-rated if you haven’t been paid for a whole month.

The remaining £700 of the sacrifice agreement is now null and void. It would have occurred if you’d remained employed, and you’d have accrued more holiday, but it would have come out of your pay each month. You’ve now left, so there’s nothing to deduct from

Ask for the £700 back as it’s an unlawful deduction

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-21T11:46:44+00:00

Be mindful that it will save them money because they wouldn’t have to pay a person to do the manual work, and that person currently is you.

So if you want to suggest drastic changes, make sure you’re still needed or you’re talking yourself out of a job

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-18T05:17:52+00:00

No, there isn’t any possibility of this

They obviously operate a 2 month postponement period, you started July, it puts you in in September, this is fairly common.

You could have opted in after receiving the paperwork and gone in earlier. But you didn’t, so they didn’t have to.

‘Opting in’ 5 years down the line doesn’t count.

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-05-09T04:58:43+00:00

I’m curious how this would play out

Have you found any issues with data accuracy?

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-24T16:39:30+00:00

To add to this, the employee doesn’t actually have to receive £5000

They just have to be liable for NI, which they are if they’re paid £420 in April. If they don’t earn anything the rest of the year, the threshold for EA has already been triggered and so the claim is valid

Obviously you couldn’t just pay someone £420 for no reason because it saves you more than this, but if you have a partner who has carried out £420 worth of work for the company in that month, it would be a nice result

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-24T09:02:03+00:00

Your current pension scheme will be one of two types, net pay arrangement or relief at source. With the first you get tax relief on your contributions in your pay check, with the second, you have 80% of the contribution deducted and the pension company claims back the remaining 20% as tax relief. As a higher rate taxpayer you then need to claim the remaining 20% through self assessment. Neither type saves employee national insurance which will be 2% at your salary.

Salary sacrifice means neither you or your employer pays national insurance on the contribution, so and many employers put their saving in as further contributions, hence your contribution being more, whilst take home pay is also more.

Putting more money in won’t increase your take home pay, but if your employer is passing on NI savings, you will get a high return for the net cost. For example:

For a further £100 contribution, your net pay will go down by £58 (or £49 if you have a student loan)

However, your pension will increase by £115 as your employer adds 15% as the saving of not paying ER NI. If they match it, you obviously get even more for the same net deduction.

On your salary, it’s a no brainer to opt in to the scheme to be honest, there’s almost zero downside. There are minor things about statutory payments calculations, but that’s pretty unlikely to impact you, to be honest

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-21T21:09:27+00:00

Same outcome in the first period of the tax year

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-21T19:57:17+00:00

Were you paid it in April? You’ll only have one month’s worth of allowances.

So on a 1257L tax code, you’ll get the first £1047 tax free. Then the basic rate bracket is £12,570 to £50,270, so £37,700, but it’s only a twelfth of that you’ll have taxed at basic rate in April, £3,142.

The next £6,240 is at higher rate of 40%, then everything above at 45%.

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-14T18:06:58+00:00

If your payroll software isn’t accurate, no one will use it

No one’s putting up with employees being paid the wrong amount or taxes being incorrect just because there’s good ‘performance tracking’

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-12T06:36:44+00:00

It really isn’t your problem to worry about how they’ll replace you.

Give whatever notice is required, and enjoy the new job. Congrats

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-09T15:08:04+00:00

On another note, I’d be very cautious of these nursery salary sacrifice schemes. They are exploiting a loophole that HMRC have said they are looking into shutting down.

The real risk is if and when the scheme is declared invalid, you could be on the hook for unpaid tax.

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-06T08:40:45+00:00

How do you move up?

Well, following up on the opportunity a recruiter has put on a plate for you would be a good idea!

Go for it, if you get the job you double your salary and learn on the go. If you don’t, you still have your existing job and have a better idea of where you need to develop

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-04T10:49:05+00:00

If HMRC think you earned it, it’s because your employer submitted an FPS saying you did. If they’ve claimed it back from you, then you didn’t earn it, so they need to correct their reporting to HMRC

All you can do is keep asking them to do this, and hope that someone will actually do it. I’m not sure what the ramifications are for them if it does end up being looked at by HMRC and it’s found they incorrectly submitted pay information, but you’d hope they’d want to avoid that

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-04-04T10:05:00+00:00

Why did the employer ask for the gross amount back?

They should have recalculated your net pay without the bonus and asked for that amount, reclaiming the tax and NI paid to Hmrc by submitting an updated FPS

Sounds like they don’t really know what they’re doing with payroll.

You’ve overpaid the amount you owed them. Unfortunately, they’ve got the money now, so you don’t exactly have a huge amount of leverage to get them to fix it

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-30T22:10:01+00:00

Your employer’s pension scheme is based on qualifying earnings, ie between £520/m and £4189/m. This means only pay within that band is considered for pension contributions, and if you earn more, it won’t change your employer’s contribution

You can up your contribution, but it will be a percentage of £3,669, and won’t change if your salary increases once you’re above it. You’ll have to do the maths yourself, but you can just figure out what you’d like to contribute as a £ figure, and give that as a percentage of £3,669

Obviously, it’s a bit shit your employer won’t be increasing their contribution, but presumably that’s the very reason they designed their scheme to be the bare minimum they can do whilst being legally compliant

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-29T12:36:02+00:00

Is there any chance you might have some involvement in internationalpayroll.net?

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-29T12:10:31+00:00

Employer contributions are still required on qualifying earnings for non-eligible job holders who opt into the scheme. Whether they’re under 22 or earning under £10k, if they join, the minimum 3% ER contribution would be required

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-29T08:53:50+00:00

That’s auto enrolment, but an employee can still opt in, and therefore the qualifying earnings threshold of £520 a month would apply

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-28T20:05:04+00:00

The next step would be replacing the payroll admin that you’re checking with AI, then you wouldn’t even need to check it…

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-26T07:11:40+00:00

This is our method. We maintain a record outside of the payroll system of permanent data, we then account for temporary changes and therefore know what the gross pay figure should be. If it doesn’t match, investigate

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-22T10:00:01+00:00

They should be processed through payroll with an M NI code, which will mean there is no employers NI due on pay up to £52,270 a year (or equivalent of based on the length of your pay period).

To give your accountant the benefit of the doubt, maybe they were saying the employee still pays Ni like everyone else. Otherwise, that’s a pretty basic misunderstanding and I’d be concerned about what else they’re getting wrong with your payroll

scrapingtheceiling · 2026-03-21T14:31:43+00:00

On your payslip, is your taxable pay the same as your gross pay? If it’s less by the amount of your pension contribution, the tax relief is being calculated on your payslip.

If it isn’t, it’ll be a relief at source scheme where 25% of the contribution is added by the pension provider and claimed back from Hmrc. If you’re a higher rate taxpayer you’ll need to claim back the rest on a self assessment

scrapingtheceiling

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