Paternity Pay question

JodieR

If an employer pays his employee his full usual wages throughout his 2 week paternity leave can they still recover 103% of the £128.73 statatory element of the payment?

JodieR

looks like i've found the answer... page 16 of http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/e19.pdf says that you can.

payrollpro

JodieR,

Absolutely, but there is one thing you ought to make sure you do, ensure the terms and conditions state clearly that the payment of full pay includes any SPP entitlement. It does not change your employers/clients right to recover but it avoids doubt and subsequent claims by some employees that SPP has not been paid - it has happened!

Payrollpro

JodieR

yes, thanks, i was doing that anyway - it was complicated by the fact that the client incorporated in April so then the software was telling me that he wasn't entitled to paternity pay as he'd not worked there long enough... all sorted now though.

The reason that I doubted that the OSPP element of the payment could be recovered is because years ago I had a client who paid an employee a full week's wages when he was off sick and I was told that the employer couldn't recover any SSP - just out of interest do you know if that's still the case?

Rozzi Rainbow

JodieR wrote: »

The reason that I doubted that the OSPP element of the payment could be recovered is because years ago I had a client who paid an employee a full week's wages when he was off sick and I was told that the employer couldn't recover any SSP - just out of interest do you know if that's still the case?

I hope not as I had a client in that situation earlier this year. I amended the payslip to show how much was SSP and how much was 'top up' to the normal weekly amount and then claimed part of the SSP back as usual. Will be interested to know the outcome on this ...

payrollpro

Hi,

It is true that very small businesses can still get some of the SSP back but I find that often the cost of working it out is much less than the amount they can recover and that's why so many don't bother.

First of all you have to match the SSP paid out in the tax month with the total amount of NIC's, primary and secondary, in the same tax month. If the total amount of the SSP is more than 13% of the NIC in the same period then the excess over 13% is reclaimable.

For example, say the total NIC for the month was £500. 13% of this is £65 so if one employee was paid a weeks SSP, £81.60 then £16.50 would be recoverable. Fairly simple but often ignored.

Payrollpro

Monsoon

My software (12Pay) works it out automatically. It is a thing of beauty

Rozzi Rainbow

Ditto my Sage software, but I always like to double check it manually especially when qualifying days and waiting days are involved. I like to make sure where Sage gets it's figures from!

JodieR

I know that you can't claim back all of the SSP, but the question here is that (assuming that you meet all other conditions), can you claim back a % of SSP where you've topped up the statatory payment to equal the full regular wages? When I dealt with this situation about 5 years ago I asked at an employment update seminar and phoned HMRC and both said that in that situation the employer wasn't entitled to recover ANY of the SSP paid. Which I thought grossly unfair, but hey ho, as has been pointed out it's not usually grand amounts anyway.