The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been extended and will remain open until 31 March 2021.
Claims will now need to be submitted by the 14th of the following month. If this falls on the weekend, claims should be submitted the next working day. Claims are still expected to be paid within 6 working days.
You can claim for any employee that was on your PAYE RTI (Real Time Information) submission to HMRC between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020.
Furloughed employees will receive 80% of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500. The scheme is set to be reviewed in January 2021 when the Government will decide if the employers then need to contribute more. Employers will be asked to cover the National Insurance and pension contributions until the review.
Employees who have previously been furloughed will continue to have their reference pay and hours based on the existing furlough calculations as before. Employees who have not been furloughed previously will have a different pay reference period. In these circumstances, for employees with fixed pay, their furlough calculations will be based on the last pay period ending on or before 30 October 2020. For those on variable hours the furlough calculations will be based on the average pay and hours worked from 6 April 2020 (or the date employment started, if later) up to the day before they are furloughed on or after 1 November 2020.
The Job Retention Bonus has now been placed on hold and will not be paid in February 2021. It is expected to be redeployed at a later date. The purpose of the bonus was to encourage employers to keep their employees on during this difficult time. However, as the CJRS scheme has been extended, the policy intent of the bonus no longer applies.
Please remember that HMRC is actively looking to recover any incorrectly submitted claims to assist in the recovery of the UK economy. Compliance checks are happening and we, therefore, urge you to only request us to prepare a claim where your employees meet the eligibility criteria and evidence is available to show the reduction due to covid in their normal working hours to support your claim.