It is worth noting that there is currently a low risk associated with swine flu and the sensible approach is to follow any guidelines issued by the Department of Health. If there is someone in the office who has or is displaying flu-like symptoms and has recently travelled to Mexico or been in contact with someone who has, it would be advisable to send that person home and get them to contact either their GP or NHS Direct. This is the advice from Sheila Hudson at the HR Dept.

How should a business deal with its employees when discussing Swine Flu?
• State the facts and make sure they are aware of updates.
• Promote safety steps.
• Don’t cause alarm.
• Remind everyone about the sickness absence policy.
• If things do develop further and guidelines are issued then devise an action plan on staffing arrangements, travel etc… should Swine Flu impact your business and any key members of staff.

What should a business do if one of their employees is diagnosed with Swine Flu?
It would be advisable to ensure everyone who has had contact with any affected employees is monitored closely.

It would of course be advisable to make sure there is a thorough clean of all hard surfaces to reduce the spread of infection. Individuals can reduce the risk of infection by making sure a tissue is used when sneezing or coughing, immediately disposing of it and washing hands regularly.

If an employee or a number of employees are off sick then normal sickness absence rules should apply, the key as always is not to discriminate and apply the same rules to all staff.

If you think someone is not genuinely ill and you have evidence to support this, you need to refer to your sickness absence rules and managing disciplinary guidelines.

As a business if you use Twitter as a marketing or customer interaction tool then you need to have a trusted person actually updating the information. Conversely you do not want your employees to be spending their working day on these types of sites, when it has nothing to do with their work. With the explosion of sites like Twitter it is a good time to review your IT Policy to check if you cover business and social networking sites and their usage during working hours. One wrong comment on Twitter, Linked In, Facebook etc could cause irreversible damage for a business because the information is instant.

Now all you need to do is tune in to the latest podcast via the following link www.hmrc.gov.uk/podcasts and the HMRC will explain it all for you.
The podcast has been developed in reference to the new rules which will be in place from
April 2009. Changes will affect large employers (50 plus employees) and the way in which P45s and P46s are filed online. Most commercial payroll software as well as the HMRC software has already been adapted to provide for the change. There will be penalties for those who do not comply.
Smaller employers are expected to be required to file P45s and P46s on line from April 2011.
From 1st April 2009 there are number of employment law changes and updates.

HMRC have the legal right to enquire into any return and if they find that there is an error in that return which has caused tax to be underpaid, they have the power to levy a penalty which is usually based on the tax underpaid. It is these powers that are to change from April 2009.

New penalties

Under the new regime, there will be a presumption that every taxpayer has taken reasonable care in completing their tax return. What constitutes reasonable care will depend on the size of the case – a large company will be expected to have sophisticated accounting systems in place, whilst an individual will be expected to have records of all their income and expenses.

No penalty will arise if it can be shown that the error was due to a simple mistake by the taxpayer. The three levels of behaviour that will give rise to a penalty are defined as:

- careless action;
- deliberate action; and
- deliberate action with concealment.

Level of penalties

The legislation sets a maximum penalty for each type of offence. The rules then allow a certain level of reduction, taking into account only the level of disclosure, but there is a minimum penalty below which the Inspector will not be able to go.

These levels are considerably in excess of the levels which have, historically, been negotiated with HMRC for similar types of offence. It seems inevitable that the cost of making an error is going to increase significantly and the utmost care needs to be taken in keeping records to ensure that they are accurate and complete.

The future

We are expecting HMRC to finalise guidance on these matters in the next few months and we will keep you up to date with developments. We will also let you have details in due course of the other changes that are being introduced, such as powers to obtain information from taxpayers and third parties. In the meantime, if you have any queries about this area, please do not hesitate to contact us.

After April 6th 2009 the statutory dispute resolution procedures will be repealed and at the same time replaced by the new ACAS Code of Practice. Whilst it is easier to understand, it again leaves many areas unexplained. Tribunals will still have the ability to increase or decrease an award by up to 25% where an employee or employer unreasonably fails to follow the code.

Perhaps most significant is the need to take out a grievance before making a tribunal claim, this has been removed so we may simply see claims being made earlier. There are a number of grey areas which we will have to wait for case law to determine.

Overall we will have to wait and see if this new system works better in practice than the dispute resolution procedures but with an increasingly litigious workforce and an uncertain economic climate we may well be changing one set of rules for another.

Employers however should review their procedures to ensure they comply with the code, and we would recommend training for managers on how to handle work place disputes upon which the code places increased emphasis.

For personal contributions, if you have a lump sum that you are willing to invest, you are actually able to benefit from the very generous levels of tax relief afforded to pension contributions. For higher rate tax payers in particular it can make a VERY attractive investment opportunity with tax relief of up to 40% on personal contributions. In most cases the level of basic rate tax relief is reclaimed on your behalf by the pension provider, so in order to invest a single premium of £10000, you need only write a cheque for £8000, and if applicable the difference between basic rate and higher rate tax, is claimed via your tax return.

Tax relief can equate to quite a substantial amount of money, and while investment returns, and rates of interest on deposit savings have been poor of late it can appear an attractive proposition, subject to personal circumstances and attitude to risk of course!

Obviously rates and particulars are different dependent on tax status, or in the case of employer contributions, the company status and scheme type.

For more information we are available to discuss your personal situation or your companies situation in more depth. Please contact us on 01482 658989 or fill in or contact form and we will be in contact shortly: http://www.kirkellainvestments.co.uk/contact.asp

Shane Beardsley
Managing Director / Independent Financial Adviser
Kirk Ella Investments Ltd

• compensatory award: £63,000 to £66,200
• a ‘week’s pay’: £330 to £350
• maximum redundancy payment: £9,900 to £10,500

This Order increases the limits applying to certain awards of employment tribunals, and other amounts payable under employment legislation, as specified in the Schedule to the Order.