To think it's an outrage employer isn't financially responsible?

[ToeSucker]

Working for start up.
There are a million issues with dirty politics, toxicity etc.
My big problem is they started paying staff via revolut and are not paying HMRC, NI or student loan contributions. Instead they're just paying the net pay amount via revolut and the rest of the money is going missing.
They've stopped paying contractors too. They're ghosting them.

We just got a 50k investment and loads of people who were meant to be paid have not been. CEO insists they have been.

I have just found out CEO told other founders my ex-colleague and friend phoned him asking for equity instead of expenses money they're owed. This never happened according to my friend.

I have my resignation letter sent. I am going to escalate to HMRC etc but everyone seems very casual about this when it seems quite serious. AIBU?

ACAS says to make a complaint to an employment tribunal if your employer refuses to give you payslips.

www.acas.org.uk/payslips

Sounds like the business is failing and they are cutting corners trying to keep it going, there probably is no money. I would be looking for another job, I would expect administration or worse pretty imminently.

Do you have a formal written contract of employment? If not you may just be casual labour or contract staff and expected to sort all the paperwork yourself. Or you may be being illegally paid cash in hand (even if you don't realise it!), you need to clarify your contract situation.

It doesn't cost very much to pay for additional years NI and very well worth doing. I know you shouldn't have to.

It might not be worth the posters money to do so. She might be better putting a lump sum into a private pension rather than trying to make up years into her state pension.

Depending on when you were born you either need 30 or 35 years of NI credits to get the full pension.

35 years out of a potential working life of 50 years (18 to 68). Two missing years probably won't matter depending on the age she started work and the retirement age at the time.

HMRC have their own investigators, there’s no need to report to police as well.

I have a contract yep

I have phoned action fraud. They say it's a civil matter and not fraud.

Have you spoken to HMRC?

Are you paid monthly?
Was that cash injection of £50k to pay Septembers wage bill?

This company sounds like its hanging by a thread. Be very careful they don't get to the end of the month and pull the plug

if an employer makes deductions from wages but doesn’t give an itemised payslip the employee can issue an employment tribunal claim and is entitled to have the deductions paid back to them.

separately the employer is obliged to make statutory deductions and pay them to HMRC etc

I would contact ACAS and register for Early Conciliation which you usually have to do before issuing a claim in the ET and also report to HMRC.

however if they have no money it’s unlikely to be a positive outcome but neither of the above cost you anything

This is what I was wondering and I think it could be quite important. I'm not an expert in this area but I find it difficult to believe that if you have a contract that shows your pay is £gross, and you can show that you've received £net, that HMRC can chase you for the unpaid tax (as opposed to the employer). I would have thought it would need some sort of collusion by the employee before they were liable. I'd need to see primary sources to convince me otherwise.

One thing I can well believe, though, is that a start-up would operate in such a fly-by-night manner. One of the reasons that a few (by now household name) new entrants to the financial services arena have been able to do as well as they have is because they don't bother too much with things like compliance, money laundering or data protection that the fuddy duddy old institutions do. They're often run by Elon Musk wannabe bellends who think rules are for other people, not visionary modern saints like them.

Yes you need to keep documentation and be ready to pay the NI and income tax owed. I have worked in financial services and this is correct information.

Even though she has only received her net pay? Her employer has made the NI and tax deducations but has kept the money rather than paying it to HMRC. It seems completely unfair that OP has to pay the tax and NI out of her net pay, while her employer will get off scot free.

@Biskieboo I’m not too sure about that now - I had to provide a ton of stuff for a Revolut business account -

Most people learn pretty early on that life isn't fair.

Huh ?

I set one up in 10 minutes. The only wrinkle was getting a decent scan of my passport that the system would accept.

What needs to be remembered if the company hasn't got the money to pay HMRC its only a matter of time before they don't have the money to pay their employees.

I cannot emphasise this enough. OP needs to get job hunting ASAP. A company in trouble is not a good place to be.
There cannot be many companies who manage to recover from this sort of situation

@SerendipityJane was this for Revolut ‘business’ ie for a limited company? I definitely had to provide a lot including a statement of what the business did, website, details of expected ins/outs and where from etc

@Needspaceforlego yep - I think a lot of people don’t realise the way a company files payroll at HMRC and actually making the payments over for tax and NICs are 2 very different things- many companies file and then don’t pay over for several months, it doesn’t debit you at that point , it’s done manually or via a DD at some weeks later - plenty go under owing vast amounts on PAYE and NICs - and even some relatively solvent companies pay this in chunks several months down the line ( although much less so)

my own view is that if it’s proven that you have been debited personally then even if the liquidation doesn’t sort this out the individuals NIC record should be covered off by the state.

people should access their pension records which are usually pretty up to date and if it looks like you aren’t being credited after several months, check out your record on gvt gateway for NIs - my mum many years ago worked somewhere they hadn’t paid over PAYE or nics for 2 years -

Ah, no. Just as a sole trader.

@SerendipityJane yep, I’ve got both - personal was easy ( fantastically useful when abroad with multi currencies) business- way more info insisted on -

The real problem is that this is all totally illegal, and there are laws already to deal with this, but like almost everything else in Britain today no one is policing them- so the company carries on regardless until they are sued, or HMRC taps them on the shoulder-which can take years.

@Laura95167 I am on quite a few business forums and HMRC have very much ‘upped the game’ it seems in the last year ( they have employed over 5,000 extra people) - one of the big reasons for so many closures isn’t all extra employers NI , regardless of what you read, a fair old chunk is huge HMRC arrears, and going for ‘wind up’ rather than time to pay for repeat offenders. For many years and especially over Covid it was all a bit more lax . It’s easier and less embarrassing to say it’s due to policy or increased this that and the other ( which is also true in many cases) than admit the straw that broke the camels back was a HMRC wind up order , a landlord taking back a lease or a time to pay that they can’t pay - I think one thing some don’t realise is this isn’t all small fry either, there are also some big companies out there not always paying obligations in a timely way - that’s how you end up with millions being owed rather than say £28,000 etc

Laws that aren't enforced aren't laws (except for the rich).

Rights that aren't enforced aren't rights (except for the rich).

Update - apparently employer issued p45 for me in April without informing me so I am now liable for tax on net earnings