Any payroll experts there?

[Blankiefan]

I've previously been told that the large company I work for doesn't reclaim SSP/SMP/etc.

A friend who works in HR (different company) however says that large companies do reclaim but in a different way. She's not sure of the details but essentially rather than claim 2 weeks for Joe Bloggs and 4 days for Jane Doe, they have an account that evens things out or similar.

My reason for asking is quite complicated (and would out me) so I wondered if you've any experience of what my friend is talking about and how it works?

Thanks

The details are all on the Gov website under reclaiming SSP. The SSP in any one month needs to be more than 13% of the Class 1 NICs for all the employees in the company that month for a company to be able to reclaim it. Very large companies are unlikely to be able to claim.

As I say all the details are there to read.

Sorry meant to say SMP is slightly diffferent it can be reclaimed if the company's total Class 1 NICs bill is less than 45,000 in that tax year. If the NICs bill is greater than this it can't be reclaimed. Again all on the Gov website.

Your friend is probably thinking about the difference between very small companies that can actually claim the SMP upfront as cash (those who have NI bills of less than £4500 NI per year) and then pay it to the employee, and the medium to large size companies who offset it against their payments of NI due.

As lonecat says larger companies (over £45k per year) can only claim SMP over 13% of their total NI bill, which is unlikely.

Perfect - thank you both. That's really helpful.

It's been a while since I did payroll but I thought large companies automatically reclaimed 92% SMP?

92% is spot on.
See page 30 of the Employers Helpbook below.
www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/e15.pdf

Is it 92% IF that amount is over 13% of the total NIC bill or is the 13% thing about something else?

Thanks

The 13% thing is relevant to SSP and not SMP.

For SMP any large Company, paying more than £45K a year in employer and employee Class 1 NICs, can recover 92% of all SMP payments from PAYE, NICs etc. (ensuring that the recovery is included in the Employer Payment Summary for each tax month so that HMRC takes the deduction into account).

Thank you

D'oh. Of course I was confuddling SMP/SSP together.

In my defence it is that time of year.

Sigh.