No. We respect your privacy and will not pass details to any other companies, except where we are obliged to provide information to certain government departments, HMRC or HM Court Service.
Simplify employs you and is obliged to comply with any requests for information about you from certain organisations such as the CSA. We have to make deductions from your wages when instructed by such organisations to do so.
If you send us a P45 that will tell us, but if you fill out a P46 you should tick the Student Loan box on the form. The Student Loan Company will pick up that you now work for us when we pay you for the first time, and even if you haven’t let us know, we will receive instructions to deduct the loan very soon after we have paid you for the first time!
Simplify employs you and will be happy to complete any such requests for you. Either forward the forms to us, or provide our contact details to the 3rd party.
We run a payroll every day and will transfer the funds into your bank on the same day we receive the funds. We use the Faster Payments Scheme which means the fund arrive in your bank the same day. If your bank doesn’t accept Faster Payments, the money will be sent by BACS and arrive in your bank 2 working days later.
You may still use an Umbrella Company; however you are not eligible to offset your expenses. The reason for this is that the expenses can only be offset at a temporary place of work. If, from the outset, it is intended that the role will ultimately become permanent, then the site cannot be classed as temporary.
You should check on your payslip which will be sent via email.
All PAYE payments are subject to Employers NIC, however this is normally done in the background and you don’t see it – because your agency/client aren’t processing your pay, they can’t pay this to HMRC directly so need to send it to Simplify within your limited rate, for us to pay to HMRC. It’s important to factor this in when you’re negotiating your limited rate with your agency/end client.
The Ltd company rate that your agency will have quoted you will include Employers NI, and holiday pay. The Employers NI proportion will be deducted before we make payments to you. When we have received details from your agency of the rates applicable to your contract, we will send you an Assignment Schedule which will specify the rates agreed with the agency.
Yes – part of the rate that your agency pays you, is holiday pay. There are 2 ways that we can pay the holiday pay to you and we will give you the option when we send over your contract.
The options are that your entitlement is paid to you with your regular payment. This is done as a loan back, where we loan you the amount that should be deducted, and then when you are on holiday the amount that we pay to you settles the loan. This is the way that the majority of our Contractors prefer and we feel your funds are better held in your bank account than ours.
A Holiday Fund can be set up for you, and we can take the amount of your basic salary which equates to Statutory holiday pay and save it for you to request when you take holiday.
If you have no or very low expenses to claim then you won’t see a saving in your deductions by using an Umbrella Company, however you will benefit from a hassle free, pick up and drop service to process your payroll.
You can submit your expenses to us via email, fax, post or WhatsApp, supported by a scan of any receipts that are required.
You should send your expense claims to us weekly. Expenses are offset against your earnings, and can only be offset as far as National Minimum Wage, therefore, if you have a large amount outstanding when you leave we will have nothing to offset them against, and we will be unable to offset those remaining.
You are not really losing out because we will have offset as much as we are allowed to by HMRC rules, however, if you can keep on top of sending your claim forms in on time, this will mean we can offset as much as we can every week for you.
If in any week the amount of expenses exceeds the amount we are able to offset taking into account NMW at that time, we will offset as much as we can and carry the remaining claim forward to the following week.
You can claim mileage on a weekly basis to offset against your payments; this must be for journeys incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively in the course of your assignment duties. Any other expenses can be submitted directly to HMRC at the end of the tax year for submission via a self-assessment.
If you travel to the same place of work on a daily basis that site is classed as permanent, despite the fact you are working under a temporary assignment. If, however, you travel to a number of sites for the same End Client you may be deemed a Multi-Site Worker and can therefore claim any incurred business miles to any places of work.
We would need to consider whether you are subject to the right of Supervision, Direction or Control in how you carry out your duties and responsibilities on site; therefore we would ask each of the following:
• Supervision – is there someone overseeing the work being done to ensure it is completed to a required standard?
• Direction – is there someone guiding or ‘directing’ your work in a particular way?
• Control – does anyone have the power to dictate what work you undertake and how to go about doing so?
In order to comply with current legislation and be eligible to claim expenses you must:
• Intend to work through Simplify for more than one assignment, and;
• Not be working on an assignment that is Temp-to-Perm, and;
• Not be due to work on the same assignment for longer than 24 months (therefore defining the assignment as permanent), and;
• Must not be working under SDC – Supervision, Direction & Control, or;
• You must be working at multiple sites with the same End Client
Where the ability to offset expenses was previously offered to all temporary workers, HMRC proposed a number of changes in the 2015 Summer Budget which were enforced for the beginning of the 2016/17 tax year. These changes sought to define workers who are eligible to claim for expenses based on their assignment, whilst there was also a restriction as to what expenses can now be applied as tax-relief per weekly/monthly period.
As a contractor you may be able to offset business expenses against your taxable pay to help reduce your deductions, providing these expenses are incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively in the course of your assignment duties & subject to you meeting certain criteria (see below for further detail).
The amount of expense that you have incurred in carrying out your duties will be paid free of PAYE & NI. This means that your take home pay is increased because you are paying less Tax and NI. It is important to remember that unlike when you are employed we do not reimburse you for those expenses; we simply process them according to the HMRC guidelines for temporary places of work.
An umbrella company employs contractors usually working on multiple temporary assignments via a Recruitment Agency. The Umbrella Company employs the contractors on an Overarching Contract of Employment and handles all of the tax & NI liabilities through PAYE.
This is the record that you send to your Recruitment Agency or End Client detailing what hours you worked within a given time period. This is used by the Recruitment Agency or End Client to inform Simplify of what you have earned.
Simplify, as your employer, is legally required to pay you statutory sick pay after four consecutive days absent from work.
HMRC gives your employer a tax code to show how much tax-free pay you should get each time you are paid – tax is deducted from anything above this.
This insurance will cover you, if you are found to be responsible for personal injuries
Simplify provides cover on a case to case basis depending on the nature of the claim.
This insurance will cover you, if you are found to be responsible for personal injuries to a third party.
Simplify will provide £10 million of cover.
This insurance protects you against a claim made by your place of work. This allows compensation to be paid if you are found to be negligent or have made a mistake.
Simplify provide £2 million of cover.
This is how often you are going to get paid and will be dictated by your Recruitment Agency or End Client.
This is a statement that Simplify will issue you at the end of the tax year which will record the tax and National Insurance you have paid over the previous financial year.
If you do not have a P45, or have not worked in the current tax year, you will be asked to complete a P46 tax form.
You should state your current circumstances by indicating which one of the three statements apply to you. This will allocate you a tax code according to the information you have provided and inform HMRC that you have commenced employment with Simplify.
HMRC will instruct us directly if the tax code needs to be amended.P46
If you do not have a P45, or have not worked in the current tax year, you will be asked to complete a P46 tax form.
You should state your current circumstances by indicating which one of the three statements apply to you. This will allocate you a tax code according to the information you have provided and inform HMRC that you have commenced employment with Simplify.
HMRC will instruct us directly if the tax code needs to be amended.
This is the certificate given to an employee at the end of a period of employment, providing details of their tax code, and the tax paid for that year, to be passed to a subsequent employer or benefit agency. If you do not have a P45 we can provide you with a P46 which will be sent to the HMRC in order to allocate your personal tax code.
This is the amount that you are paid once all liabilities (ie tax, National Insurance Contributions and Simplify’s Margin have been deducted. This is the amount of money that is paid into your bank.
MSC stands for a Managed Service Company. This is a company that provides the services of people to other companies. These are now illegal as the contractor avoids paying tax as they claim dividends from the company. Simplify is not an MSC.
National Insurance contributions help to build your entitlement to certain state benefits, such as the National Health Service and your State Retirement Pension. There are lots of different classes of National Insurance, as an employee of Simplify you need to be aware of Employees NIC which will be deducted from your pay along with PAYE, and also Employer’s NIC. The Employer’s Contribution is relevant to you when working through an Umbrella company as your agency will have allowed for this extra cost when they calculated your Ltd Rate. However, this contribution still has to be made to HMRC and this is one of the payments that Simplify will take care of on your behalf.
On 9th March 1999, the then Inland Revenue issued a press release detailing how they were to close the loophole that allowed freelancers and contractors to avoid paying large amounts of tax and national insurance by using a personal service company, composite company or business partnerships. This press release was called IR35, and the legislation it announced has generally been referred to as IR35 ever since.
The government identified contractors as ‘tax avoiders’, due to the tax saving benefits they enjoyed from working through a Limited Company/Personal Service Company, whilst their underlying status was clearly that of a “deemed employee” The IR35 legislation was implemented in April 2000.
IR35 has resulted in increased Tax, NI liability and administration for those contractors using a Limited Company. IR35 made the use of Umbrella Companies significantly more attractive and more recent “Legislation to tackle Managed Services Companies” introduced in the Budget 2007 increased the appeal of umbrella companies further.
When you are employed via a PAYE Umbrella Company, IR35 does not apply to you, as its a test of false self-employment.
Your limited rate includes an allowance for holiday pay. As an employee you then accrue holiday pay in the sae way that other employees do. There are two options for this:
1. You claim your holiday every payment.
2. You set up a “holiday fund” and claim when you are not working.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; formerly known as the Inland Revenue. They write, police and uphold legislation concerning tax.
HMRC also provide us with the tax code we use to calculate your tax free allowance.
The Gross Pay we receive from your agency includes all employment costs, as well as your pay. We will send you a full breakdown once this has been processed which will show you how your pay has been calculated.
Faster Payments is the UK’s 24/7 Real Time Payment System that enable individuals and businesses to transfer funds quickly, easily and securely. Simplify will use this payment method to credit funds to your account.
Please refer to our expenses policy which details who is entitled to claim.
It is a requirement for all Employers to have Employers Liability Insurance. If you are a one person Ltd Company, you will still need to have Employer’s Liability Insurance in place.
Simplify provide £5 million of cover.
This is a HMRC policy that states that once you have been made aware (i.e you have a contract to state) or you have been based at a specific site for more than 24 months this is no longer deemed as a temporary place of work and hence you are not entitled to claim business expenses (hence reduce the tax you pay). This is deemed by the HMRC as irrelevant who your employer is, it is the location that is important. i.e. you can’t change umbrella organisation to avoid this and hence continue to off-set expenses.
The Ltd Rate is the rate that you would have if you were a permanent employee, plus an amount to cover your entitlement to holidays under the Working Time Directive, plus an account to cover other employment costs, such as Employers NIC.
This is a contract of employment that Simplify will send to you, this will state what, whom and how you will work with us.