pay
We believe that prevention is better than a cure. We can make
sure your pay and benefit arrangements, including your
employment contracts, director's service contracts,
handbooks and policies are accurate and meet all legal
requirements, which in turn means that you can help your employees
understand fully their pay and benefits and the terms and
conditions of them.
We can advise on:
- age discrimination - enhanced redundancy
pay based on age or years of service
- sex discrimination and maternity and paternity absence,
including continuation of pay and benefits
- equal pay
- part-time workers - pro rata pay and benefits for part-time
workers
- TUPE - harmonising terms and conditions
for pay and benefits, implementing equivalent commission and profit
share schemes
- unfair dismissal - interaction with
permanent health insurance or other sickness pay arrangements
- constructive dismissal - when significant
changes in pay or benefits have led to resignations
- breach of contract - where contractual pay or benefits
have been changed or withdrawn without agreement, or where there
has been disagreement about the discretionary or mandatory nature
of a benefit
Click on the link for more information on
our employment law services.
pensions
Pension schemes are increasingly under pressure leading to
strain on both employees and trustees as they try to work together
to manage the position. Common issues you may face might
be:
- a need to make changes to your pension arrangements – closing
defined benefit sections to new entrants; stopping defined benefit
accrual and introducing defined contribution either under trust or
contract based - but concerns about how best to implement them and
what exactly is required
- corporate changes and their impact on the scheme, the sponsor
and the other employees
- conflicts of interest and how best to deal with them
- concerns that scheme trustees may not have all the necessary
knowledge and understanding of all the key issues (as the law now
requires) or that the scheme and the trustees are not getting the
right level of support and help
We can help you by:
- providing advice and analysis on all legal governance and
trusteeship issues
- providing advice on the impact and mechanisms for changing
arrangements, including the contractual and scheme
requirements
- amending all relevant scheme and employment documentation,
including member communications
- advising on the impact of corporate changes and restructuring
and assessment
- training scheme trustees and relevant employer officers
- providing independent professional trusteeship either as sole
trustee or alongside existing trustees, to provide help, support
and expertise
Click on the link to view more information on our
pension services.
life assurance
Many employers opt to provide life assurance benefits for their
employees even if there is no pension scheme under which these can
be provided. There are new requirements that restrict who can be
covered for life assurance benefits under an occupational pension
scheme. And then there are requirements that affect how the
benefits can be provided and paid in the most efficient and tax
effective way.
We can help you by:
- determining the appropriate mechanism for providing the
benefits
- preparing all of the relevant scheme documentation and drafting
or reviewing employee communications
- providing advice on how benefits should be paid so as to avoid
inheritance tax liabilities
permanent health insurance arrangements
These arrangements (which are sometimes called long term
sickness plans or salary continuance arrangements) need to dovetail
effectively with an employer's short term sickness arrangements and
other policies relating to absence and pay. They normally cover
periods of sickness absence lasting more than six months.
If these arrangements are insured you will need to understand
the terms on which an insurer will provide the benefits and make
sure that your commitments match what is provided by them. Insurers
will often have rules under which the arrangements will operate and
these should be reviewed. You also need to be careful when changing
insurers to make sure either that all of the terms and conditions
are the same, or that any changes are identified and where
necessary implemented and advised to employees.
However a number of employers are now either only having
insurance that covers absences of more than 12 months or opting not
to insure the benefits at all. This means that any rules governing
the payments have to be drawn up and if necessary be consistent
with those covering the insured period. You also need to make sure
that the arrangements are clear on continued eligibility for and
membership of relevant benefit programmes, including pension and
life assurance amongst other things.
We can help you by:
- preparing appropriate employment terms, sections for handbooks,
employee communications
- advising on all related legal issues
- reviewing or drafting any rules that govern these
arrangements
private medical insurance
If you provide this benefit to some or all of your employees,
you need to be aware of what you are providing and the basis for
changing this in the future. We can help by reviewing the
arrangements and identifying the scope for changes either to
eligibility or to the benefit coverage so that your liability is
known and understood. We can also review the terms of the insurer
to ensure that they tie in with your statements to employees. If
you opt not to insure some or all of this benefit, we can also help
with the terms for employees and advise on the mechanisms for
providing the benefits in these circumstances.
salary sacrifice
More and more companies are choosing to introduce salary
sacrifice as the most cost effective way of providing certain
benefits - from facilitating contributions to pension
arrangements to child care vouchers or cycle to work schemes.
However, it is vital that the arrangements are fully effective
for both tax and national insurance purposes.
We can draft or review the relevant forms and documentation and
generally advise on how to make sure these arrangements are
effective.
flexible benefit arrangements
These are often tied into, or an extension of, a salary
sacrifice arrangement but may cover other benefits, eg additional
life assurance, access to (greater) private medical insurance and
critical illness cover amongst other things.
We can help by ensuring that these arrangements are properly
documented and that employees are able to make choices about
benefits that (a) ensure the most appropriate favourable tax and NI
treatment (as with salary sacrifice for example) and (b) are
consistent both with general employment terms and the terms
operated by any of the providers and insurers.
employee share schemes
Whether you are a private or public limited company, we can
provide advice on the different types of scheme and help you
establish the most appropriate scheme for your organisation
- HMRC Approved Company Share Option Plans (CSOPs)
- Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI)
- Unapproved Share Options
- HMRC Approved Share Incentive Plans (SIP)
- Long-term incentive plans
- 'Phantom' share schemes
- Employee Benefit trusts (EBT)
We can help you by:
- preparing all relevant documentation, including rules, option
agreements and ancillary documentation
- making any necessary amendments to share capital structure and
articles of association
- liaising with auditors/accountants on share values for the
purpose of such schemes
- obtaining approvals from HMRC
- documenting initial awards/grants
- advising on the administration of the scheme
- advising on applicable Companies Acts and FSMA requirements and
exemptions, institutional investor and other guidelines and codes
practice, and the exercise of share options / implementation of
awards, particularly in takeover, employment termination and other
exit situations
self-employment models
The last few years have seen massive changes in the tax and
employment status of self employed workers, temps and limited
company contractors. 'Employers' who fail to engage on a safe basis
will face the risk of huge tax and National Insurance assessments
on a grossed-up basis, perhaps on a retrospective basis, which have
not been (fully) recognised or allowed for.
Our solutions and contracting models minimise the risks from
these PAYE and National Insurance assessments, assist in avoidance
of IR35 charges, and avoid tax debt transfer risk under the Managed
Service Company legislation.
Construction Industry Scheme (CIS)
This difficult new regime causes huge problems for the unwary.
We ensure that structures are adopted which do not lead to
unexpected or unrecognised tax and National Insurance assessments
in respect of sub-contractors.
employed contractor models with tax free travel and
accommodation
The last few years has seen a growth in umbrella company
employment and the like, facilitated via legally effective
overarching contracts of employment. HMRC are scrutinising these
arrangements and our contract models are designed to ensure that
they are seen a genuine employment models, justifying the tax free
payment of travel and accommodation expenses.
VAT mitigation in relation to the supply of temporary
workers
We are developing new models for supplying temporary and
contract workers on a VAT efficient basis to end users who are
unable to recover VAT charged to them.
