Within a few days of publishing our Furlough Letter Template, the Government has made some changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and HMRC have confirmed that they will be accepting claims from next Monday, 20th April. The aim is to process claims next week so that the 80% subsidy is paid in time to reach employers for payday on 30th April.
The latest change in the scheme will help some 200,000 people who were not eligible for being furloughed, as they were not on their employer’s payroll on 28th February. This date has now been changed to 19th March. In addition, employees who were made redundant after 28 February can be taken back and put on furlough under changes to the rules.
So, if you need a furlough letter, try ContractStore’s template, which comes with the usual helpful explanatory notes.
Employers will be able to make a claim for 80% of employees’ wages, up to £2,500 per month. All claims must be made online and here is an extract from a HMRC email:
Information you will need before you make a claim:
You will need to have the following before 20 April 2020:
- a Government Gateway (GG) ID and password – if you don’t already have a GG account, you can apply for one online, or by going to GOV.UK and searching for ‘HMRC services: sign in or register’
- be enrolled for PAYE online – if you aren’t registered yet, you can do so now, or by going to GOV.UK and searching for ‘PAYE Online for employers’
- the following information for each furloughed employee you will be claiming for:
- Name.
- National Insurance number.
- Claim period and claim amount.
- PAYE/employee number (optional).
- if you have fewer than 100 furloughed staff – you will need to input information directly into the system for each employee
- if you have 100 or more furloughed staff – you will need to upload a file with information for each employee; we will accept the following file types: .xls .xlsx .csv .ods.
Keep safe.
16.4.2020