Company Directors – 80% Wages Support
We have received guidance on the wage grant.
HMRC have confirmed that:
- Salaried company directors are eligible to be furloughed and receive support through this scheme.
- If a company has a number of directors then the company directors (via the Board) can decide to furlough one or more directors.
- Directors are required to fulfil a number of statutory duties and therefore a director can be furloughed (including directors of their own personal service company) provided they do no more than would reasonably be judged necessary for that purpose, for instance, they should not do work of a kind they would carry out in normal circumstances to generate commercial revenue or provides services to or on behalf of their company.
This would allow directors to provide information to us for:
(i) VAT returns;
(ii) year end accounts;
(iii) PAYE and other reporting.
As a director you should not be building customer relations, chasing outstanding customer receipts or providing quotes for work. In our view these activities would be included within activities to generate commercial revenue or provide services.
Update 9th April – agents will be able to make the claim. If you are a Clearways Accountants’ client assume we are your PAYE agent, we will contact you if this is not the case.
It is not confirmed but we believe agents will not be able to make the claim for the wage grant. We have been told that although this has been requested it is possible HMRC will not be able to build this functionality into the new portal.
Therefore you should set up your business tax account now, so it is ready to use, if you need it. Remember it is the company that needs the account. Follow the link and:
- click sign in (green button)
- then create sign in details
- then follow the instructions
- when you get to a home screen you want to add a tax
- select PAYE for employers
- add your scheme number – this is on your payslip
- add your accounts office number – this is on your employer payslips and is the reference you use to make payments
HMRC will send an activation code in the post and it takes a week to 10 days. You have time to do this before the portal opens.
If you are a client of Clearways Accountants and want help with this then please contact us.