Employers reminded to report normal pay date in December
17 November: ICAEW’s Tax Faculty is reminding employers that they risk impacting the universal credit claims of their staff if they do not report the contractual pay date in December’s full payment submission (FPS).
As many organisations choose to pay employees’ salaries earlier than usual over the Christmas period, ICAEW is urging employers to report their normal pay date on their FPS.
In tax law, the date that employers should submit for payments of wages/salary in PAYE RTI FPS is the date in an employee’s contract, not the actual date of payment.
For example, if an employer chooses to pay staff on 18 December 2020, but their normal payment date would be 31 December 2020, they should report the payment date as 31 December 2020.
The same applies where employees are paid a day early or late owing to contractual pay date falling on a weekend.
The reported date is particularly important for employees who claim universal credit (UC), because UC awards are based on the earnings that claimants receive within a calendar month starting from the date they first claimed, rather than what they earned for that month.