Temporary workers - your pension obligations
If you’re employing temporary workers for the summer season don’t forget that they have the same rights to join your workplace pension as permanent employees. What do you need to do?
Pension auto-enrolment
Workplace pensions have been around for over a decade. Despite this, every year some employers forget that temporary employees they take on, say during the summer period, have the same rights to workplace pensions as their full-time workers. Because of this HMRC is currently running a campaign to remind employers.
Assess and advise
If you’re an employer you must assess temporary staff for their right to be enrolled in your workplace pension scheme each time you pay them, even if they only work for you for a few days.
If you don’t assess your employees for entitlement to join your workplace pension it can result in a warning from HMRC or The Pensions Regulator. This can escalate to a fine of £400 initially and then daily penalties of between £50 and £10,000.
You can avoid having to assess your employees if they will work for you for no more than three months. Do this by using the auto-enrolment postponement procedure.
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Recovering underclaimed input tax
Your business has incorrectly failed to claim input tax on a particular expense for five years. You know it can only be corrected for four years to comply with the legislation, but are you aware of a potential three-month extra claim in some cases?
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Double up on the employment allowance
You’re the sole shareholder of a limited company which employs several members of staff. You’re working on plans to start another business with an ex-colleague. Can both businesses benefit from the full employment allowance (EA)?
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Dodging tax and NI on 2025/26 benefits
If you had taxable benefits in kind in 2025/26 then you’ll have to pay income tax on the value. Your company also has to pay 15% NI. Now the tax year has passed is there any way you can reduce or eliminate this tax liability?