The Chancellor announced the creation of a NICs Employment Allowance in the 2013 Budget. This is planned to start on 6 April 2014 and moved a step closer to becoming law with the First Reading of the Bill on 14 October 2013.
HMRC have published the following background information about the scheme:
“In the March 2013 Budget, as part of its strategy to encourage business growth, the Government announced that it will introduce an employment allowance of £2,000 a year for all businesses, charities and CASCs to offset against their liability for Class 1 secondary NICs.
To keep the process as simple as possible for employers, the employment allowance will be delivered through standard payroll software and HMRC’s Real Time Information (RTI) system. HMRC will add a facility to the RTI Employer Payment Summary (EPS) referring to the employment allowance in the form of a “yes/no” indicator and payroll software providers will do the same. HMRC will amend its basic PAYE tools to have an EPS facility to help those employers who do not have such a facility on their software.
To claim the allowance, the employer will have to signify his intention to claim by completing the yes/no indicator just once. The employer will then offset the allowance against each monthly Class 1 secondary NICs payment that is due to be made to HMRC until the allowance is fully claimed or the tax year ends. The following tax year, the allowance will be available as an offset against a Class 1 secondary NICs liability as it arises during the tax year.
The employment allowance will apply per employer, regardless of how many PAYE schemes that employer chooses to operate, so each employer can only claim for one allowance. It will be up to the employer which PAYE scheme to claim it against.”