Does anyone actually think we are getting the 80%

[ChrissieKeller61]

By whatever method ... been chatting to business owners on linkedin and there is a growing feeling that they've no intention of paying this and it's literally a bone been thrown to stop the plebs rioting whilst the lockdown occurs. The USA and Australia have put actual money into peoples accounts. We have been given interest occurring holidays and a promise

It certainly sounded from those solicitors (Gannons by the way who sent me the helpful summary above) that it is quite complex to get it right as rules keep changing although to be fair to the state they keep changing in favour of the companies receiving the money.

One thing I wondered from the start is how do they tell if a company has no work for someone because of covid or just because they were useless and in Jan about to go bust anyway - it seems you get the money either way which seem really wrong to me. Secondly surely one small company could put Mr A on furlough and let him subcontract his services to company B and then company B could do the same and then freelance for company A and then A and B employees and owners of their compAny in effect double their pay.

@xenia Those rules have been out for a while. I had them emailed to me along with a template to use to get staff to sign. And of course you can't reduce staff salary without their agreement, although if they don't agree you can make them redundant.
And the first things I read about furlough said that the staff could do no work for the company, they could work elsewhere but had to be ready to return to the company that furloughed them as soon as they were asked to. So in reality they can only take cover type work.

This is what my Payroll software provider say

"UPDATE 18 APRIL 2020
At 17:10 on Friday 17 April 2020 (less than 72 hours before the claim portal is due to go live) HMRC contacted software developers by email to inform that they will be making major changes to the methodology used to calculate claim amounts under the CJRS.
In the meantime we have removed the step-by-step instructions to producing the claim report from this guide. We will update this page again as more information becomes available."

I bet the software companies loved that 😬. Pretty sure all of them will be working overtime this weekend,

Its why the budget was moved from march to the Autumn

• to move the pronouncements away from the end of the tax year

as payroll and tax software companies struggle to do the updates even without lockdown and ill staff

Yes, but there were changes this week - that is the problem - the rules keep being developed further and the date changed too as to when you were covered if you started work recently.

Wow, Come - that is last minute. What a nightmare. I believe HMRC says according to today's FT that they can handled 450,000 claims a minute on 20 April so hopefully the system will not collapse for those employers lucky enough to be within furlough (I am not as self employed sole trader, no limited company and profits over £50k - a cap that does not apply to employees getting furlough money- very unfair - let us hope Sunak remembers next year and reduces tax/NI of those who got none of this money and only increases it for those who did.)

@xenia You have an income annually of more than £200k. If you can't manage some months of lock down without government help that is down to your poor financial mismanagement.
I find it quite obscene you keep trying to get sympathy here from others like me who are low paid, have less money coming in, but will manage.

I don't. However I agree I am very lucky not to be ill.

i do accept self employed over £50k have more money than self employed on £40k but I cannot see why employees with furlough money can earn £10m a year and still get the £2k a month whereas self employed honest enough to declare profits over £50k get zero.

A tax client just called me

The Text Message saying to give your bank details to claim
IS A SCAM

He called me before opening it.
Please let your friends and contact know

HMRC shill do not know how to do texts

@xenia I know you are not earning equivalent of over 200k a year at the moment. But in the past you have said this on MN.
If you are earning this amount as a self employed worker you really need to put money aside for bad times.
And how many shop workers do you think earn 10 million a year?

Success.
Managed to submit to portal. Really pleased.
It caught me out right at the start because I had all the PAYE details ready, but when I read up on it, I had missed the bit about Corporation Tax UTR and I had to suddenly hunt around the office for it, dreading that I would be logged out after 30 minutes.

Phew. Well pleased.

@Oblomov20 I've cocked up on 2 - put the clients address in instead of the bank address. Idiot!

Oh dear user. So did I. I put our address instead of bank address.
Why did that not occur to me earlier how stupid that was of me.

What do I do now?
Presumably it will be refused.

Oh bugger.

I can never remember our bank address anyway. It was set up 30 years ago, in a town that I always forget!

I bet You other people make that same mistake as well!!

how many left have you got user? aren't you the poster with 120 left to do?

We did the same with the address! Bugger. It shouldn't matter hugely I'd hope...

The increase in tax credits payments happened straight away, I had my first payment through with the extra amount included. Not the same as the furlough scheme. But I hope that helps show the government intent to help is real.

I'm doubting myself now, should it have been the bank address or the clients? I'm doing it through the Agent gateway if that makes a difference. On the review tab it listed Bank Details, sort code xxx, account number xxx address - so surely that means the bank's address? I think a G&T would help me greatly right now :)

It was DH who completed it so i'm not sure. It sounds almost like the details on a direct debit screen which would be bank address however the number of times I've filled those in wrong or with a vague address...

I'm thinking its the employers address and the wording was somewhat misleading. I've only cocked up one then. Bonus.

The online calculator is calculating the wrong employer NI contrinutions for me.

I have someone who is usually paid £750 per month. Employer NI contributions are usually £8.odd It's telling me that for the period 23rd-31st March employer NI are £20.88

It's now insisting on giving me figures for an extra week for one employee. Most ere furloughed between 23rd-26th March. ONe wasn't furloughed until 30th March but it says put your claim date the first employee was furloughed.

I have to admit we didn't use the calculator - I worked through it before hand and did it manually (well, excel, but YKWIM!). We have people furloughed on various different dates and it seemed easier.

The calculator was confusing to say the least. I've worked it out manually, or rather the software has given me the answers.

One thing I'm not sure about, Employers nic will be refunded but the majority of my clients don't pay it as they claim the allowance. I'm assuming HMRC will be ignoring the claim for a while.

I deducted it from our claim - because we were claiming for March (11 days) and April. We'd used ours up for last year (crap I didn't actually check this, I think we had!!) but obviously had a fresh one for April so I only claimed for the March NI component.