ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code broadly prohibit transactions between employee benefit plans or Individual Retirement Accounts and certain “parties in interest” or “disqualified persons”. However, certain transactions are exempted from such prohibition. One such exemption applies to transactions involving independent qualified professional asset managers, which includes banks, savings and loan associations, insurance companies and … Continue Reading
Section 2206 of the CARES Act allowed an exclusion of up to $5,250 from an employee’s gross income, if an employer paid principal or interest on an employee’s “Qualified Education Loan”. Section 2206 of the CARES Act was only designed to be in effect for calendar year 2020. However, The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the … Continue Reading
Think you have cracked auto enrolment? You may have chosen a pension scheme, enrolled the right people and notified The Pensions Regulator (TPR). What else can be left? Here are the top three things required to help you stay on track. 1. Re-enrolment and re-declaration Every three years you must assess some of your staff … Continue Reading
Football, football teams, footballers, footballer’s pay… a comprehensive review of the case law on the taxation of termination payments… this one has got it all! The match… the case (HM Revenue & Customs v Tottenham Hotspur Limited) concerns termination payments made to Peter Crouch and Wilson Palacios. The facts are relatively straightforward. Both player’s contracts with Tottenham … Continue Reading
Employers can pursue pension plan change with renewed vigour following the publication of the judgment in the IBM appeal. They can now be less concerned about whether promises they have made in the past may bind them into the future, as the weight of an employee’s “reasonable expectations” argument has been significantly downgraded making it … Continue Reading
An important deadline is coming up for employers who have used the transitional period for schemes with defined benefits to delay their automatic enrolment duties. Whilst the transitional period has not been widely used – the Pensions Regulator’s most recent monthly compliance report sets out that, as at July 2017, approximately 433,000 workers have had … Continue Reading
The report resulting from the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices (the Taylor Review), ‘Good Work‘, was finally published on 11 July 2017. The Taylor Review’s primary focus was new ways of working, the ‘gig’ economy, worker rights and responsibilities, and employer freedoms and obligations. Although tax was not (formally at least) within its remit, … Continue Reading
Alongside the almost complete reversal of recent cuts in the main rate of corporation tax (returning it to 26% by 2020-21 – a rate not seen since 2011 or, rather, the time of the last Labour government), the proposal to introduce a so-called ‘Robin Hood’ tax on financial derivatives (a proposal mired by its own complexity … Continue Reading
Originally mooted by Theresa May during the hustings for the leadership of the Conservative Party (see our report), the proposal to enable employee representation on the Boards of UK companies finally assumed the status of formal government policy on Wednesday (5th October 2016) with the measure being specifically mentioned in the Prime Minister’s closing speech to … Continue Reading
At the Autumn Statement last week the Government announced that it had responded to the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) report on employment status originally published in March and it was “taking forward the majority of its recommendations”. Now, 9 months after the March report, a letter from HM Treasury has emerged indicating which of … Continue Reading
For employees that move from country to country, the taxation of benefits in the form of shares is different from the way in which other types of remuneration are taxed in the UK. This can be a pain to administer and result in significant tax advantages to some employees, whilst others are worse off. The … Continue Reading
Written by Clare McNicholas Yesterday saw the Employment Appeal Tribunal give its decision in Bear Scotland Ltd v Fulton & anor and the other consolidated holiday pay appeals. It confirmed that non-guaranteed overtime should be taken into account when calculating holiday pay – or at least for the purposes of four out of the 5.6 … Continue Reading
For employers, the Hobby Lobby decision of the U.S. Supreme Court makes no attempt to define the scope and meaning of the term “closely held” corporation. The majority opinion stated that “the cases before us are closely held corporations, owned and controlled by members of a single family”. Is this ruling supposed to be limited … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor’s revised proposed rule for defining a fiduciary has been delayed … again. Most recently expected in August, the Labor Department is now predicting January 2015. And, the rule has a new name: The Conflict of Interest Rule for Investment Advice. As a refresher, the proposed rule would broaden the definition … Continue Reading
The Budget did not contain much that was new in relation to employment tax issues. Many of the measures had been previously announced. However, there has been further information published in the past week and today in relation to a number of changes, including revisions to the legislation on dual employment contracts and further guidance on … Continue Reading
For three years Australian directors have had to contend with the ‘two strikes’ rule regarding executive remuneration. Under the rule shareholders have the opportunity to spill a company’s board of directors if the resolution to approve the company’s remuneration report receives a ‘no’ vote of 25% or more at two successive annual general meetings (the … Continue Reading
