Opera 3 SQL SE Release 2.70.00

This release includes the payroll statutory changes for the 2019-20 tax year-end and the new 2020-21 tax year.

This release also includes the changes for Making Tax Digital for VAT fraud prevention that were first made available in the v2.63.00 release.

Contents

  1. Payroll : Statutory changes
    1. Employment Allowance
    2. Payrolling company cars
    3. Holiday pay averages
    4. Employer Class 1A NICs on termination payments & sporting testimonials
    5. Off-payroll workers in the private sector
    6. Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay
    7. Real Time Information submissions
  2. New Tax Year History view
  3. Payroll Update server-side process
    1. Benefits of running processes on the Opera 3 SQL SE server
  4. MTD for VAT fraud-prevention
  5. User guides

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Product

Version

Updates

Pegasus Opera 3

2.70.00

Statutory payroll changes for the 2020-21 tax year are updates for the Employment Allowance, payrolling company cars, calculating holiday pay averages, Employer Class 1A NICs on termination payments & sporting testimonials, off-payroll workers in the private sector, changes to the FPS and EPS submissions to HMRC, and new NI, PAYE and statutory payments rates and bands.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay is also introduced in the 2020-21 tax year. This is a new workplace right to paid leave for bereaved parents.

The Payroll Update process, which completes the current pay period ready for the next pay period, has been converted to a Data Intensive Process. This runs on the server rather than on the workstation PC.

Payroll : Statutory changes

Employment Allowance

The Employment Allowance is currently claimed by employers to reduce their employers secondary Class 1 NICs bill by up to £3,000.

From 6 April 2020, extra checks are needed to ascertain eligibility. Employers can claim the allowance if their secondary Class 1 NICs liability was less than £100,000 in the prior tax year. Employers whose secondary Class 1 NICs liability was £100,000 or more will not be eligible to claim the allowance.

Because of the change, from the 2020-21 tax year the Employment Allowance is considered to be a type of de minimis state aid because it advantages some businesses over others, which could potentially distort competition and trade within the European Union. This will not apply if the business does not engage in economic activity by putting goods or services on the market.

Businesses must ensure that the £3000 allowance when added to other de minimis state aid received or allocated in the claim year plus the previous two tax years does not exceed the de minimis state aid threshold for the trade sector.

Employers need to reapply for the de minimis state aid Employment Allowance at the start of each tax year.

HMRC will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the de minimis state aid rules.

Software changes

Payroll Calculation

When running a calculation for a pay period end date after 31 March 2021, the Calculation Audit Report now reports any employees who are turning 23 years old during that pay period.

PAYE/NI/Stat. Payments

A new checkbox has been added to the PAYE/NI/Stat. Payments form to ensure, when selected, that the new National Minimum and Living Wage bands are used from 1st April 2021.

Employee Age List

The Payroll - Misc. Reports - Employee Age List report has been amended to show where an employee is 23 years old.

Note:  Both variants of the report including the Excel outputs have been changed.

 

Applies to

Employers claiming the Employment Allowance.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

For details about the National Living Wage, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/low-pay-commission-consultation-2020.

Payrolling company cars

From 6 April 2020, additional details need to be recorded for company cars:

  • The date the car was first registered. This is mandatory from April 2020.

  • The zero-emission miles before exhaust emissions start. This is required from April 2020 only if the car has between 1g/km to 50g/km of CO2 emissions.

 

Software changes

  • For each employee with a company car you can now record the date the car was first registered, and if relevant the zero emissions mileage on the Payroll Company Car Benefits screen.

  • The Full Payment Submission to HMRC will always include the car registration date. The zero emissions mileage is included only if the car has CO2 emissions between 1g/km to 50g/km (which classes the car as 'zero emissions').

  • The new details are included in the Company Car Benefits report.

Applies to

Employees with company cars.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

For details about payrolling car benefits, visit www.gov.uk/guidance/payrolling-tax-employees-benefits-and-expenses-through-your-payroll.

Holiday pay averages

From 6 April 2020, the number of weeks that must be used to calculate average weekly earnings for holiday pay - the 'Holiday Pay Reference Period' - increases from 12 weeks to 52 weeks.

This change is designed to even out seasonal variations in pay for workers in seasonal occupations without fixed hours or pay.

Software changes

  • Holiday pay averages are calculated in Opera 3 for weekly paid employees.

  • The existing Weeks for Holiday Pay Average option on the Set Options screen in Payroll now allows 52 weeks to be recorded. Previously only 12 weeks were allowed.  

  • Previously the number of days in a working week in Payroll was set to '5' and could not be changed. Now a new option called Days for Holiday Pay Average has been added to the Set Options screen in Payroll so that the relevant number of days is used in the calculation of the daily average for holiday pay for weekly paid employees. This new option defaults to '5' so only needs to be changed if the number of days in a working week is different.

    The number of days in a working week can also be defined on the Employee Profile screen - which is used for all employee records linked to the profile, and on the Details & Bank screen for employee records - which is used only for the relevant employee.

    This new setting is used in the calculations in the Holiday Pay Average report.

  • The Holiday Payment screen for each employee calculates the average holiday pay for the number of weeks holiday being recorded and updates the holiday payments on the employee's record. This now includes 52 weeks earnings when calculating the average earnings using the Weeks for Holiday Pay Average option on the Set Options screen.

Applies to

Weekly paid employees.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

For details about holiday pay guidance, visit www.gov.uk.

Employer Class 1A NICs on termination payments & sporting testimonials

Before 6 April 2020, the termination awards and sporting testimonials were subject to different rules for Income Tax and National Insurance contributions.

From 6 April 2020, the rules are more closely aligned.

  • Termination payments over a £30,000 threshold, which have not already incurred a Class 1 NICs liability, are subject to Class 1A Employers NICs.  

  • Sporting testimonials over a £100,000 threshold, which have not already incurred a Class 1 NICs liability, are also subject to Class 1A Employers NICs.

Before 6 April 2020

Termination payments and sporting testimonials

Income Tax?

Employee NI?

Employer NI?

Below the thresholds No No No
Above the thresholds Yes No No

From 6 April 2020

Termination payments and sporting testimonials

Income Tax?

Employee NI?

Employer NI?

Below the thresholds No No No
Above the thresholds Yes No Yes*

*The Class 1A NIC charge is 13.8%.

Software changes

  • A new option has been added to the Payment Profile screen in Payroll.  The Class 1A NI'able option controls whether payments associated with the profile are included in the calculation of Employers Class 1A National Insurance contributions.

    This option should only be selected for payments that are more than the tax and National Insurance threshold for termination payments or sporting testimonial awards.

    After creating the Payment Profile it should be included on the employee's Payment & Deduction screen with the relevant payment value before running a Payroll calculation.

  • The Employers Class 1A National Insurance contributions are recorded on the Employee To-Date Details and Employee History screens.

  • The thresholds are recorded on the NI ER's page of the PAYE/NI & Statutory Payments screen in Payroll. They are updated automatically when the other rates and thresholds are updated.

Applies to

Employers paying termination awards or sporting testimonials.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

Example

An employee is made redundant after 6 April 2020 and given a termination award payment of £50,000.

In Opera 3 the employer creates two Payment Profiles:

  • The first payment profile for the amount that is exempt from Income Tax and National Insurance - with the 'Taxable', 'NI’able' and 'Class 1A NI’able' options cleared.

  • The second payment profile for the amount that is liable for Income Tax and Class 1A Employers National Insurance - with the 'Taxable' and 'Class 1A NI’able' options selected.

The termination payment will be split into two payments using the first payment profile (for £30,000 - the termination payment threshold) and the second payment profile (£20,000).

The Payroll calculation will calculate Income Tax and the Class 1A Employer National Insurance (13.8%) on £20,000. The Class 1A Employer National Insurance will be included in the employee's FPS submission for the pay period.

  • No Income Tax, or Employee or Class 1A Employer National Insurance will be applied to the £30,000.

  • Employee National Insurance will not be applied to the £20,000 amount.

When the employee's termination payment is up to £30,000, only one Payment Profile is required.

 

More information

For details about Class 1A NICs on termination payments & sporting testimonials, visit www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-contributions-termination-awards-and-sporting-testimonials-bill/national-insurance-contributions-termination-awards-and-sporting-testimonials-bill.

Off-payroll workers in the private sector

The rules for off-payroll working in the private sector (IR35) change on 6 April 2020.

These rules changes affect the following:

  • workers who provide services through an intermediary

  • clients who receive services from a worker through their intermediary

  • agencies that provide workers services through an intermediary.

Before 6 April 2020, public sector clients must decide their off-payroll workers' status and inform them of the decision. The public authority is required to deduct relevant Income Tax and NI before making payments to workers. Private sector employers should leave that decision to the off-payroll workers' intermediary.

From 6 April 2020, as well as public sector clients, private medium and large sized employers must also decide their off-payroll workers' status. And so both public authorities and medium and large sized employers are required to deduct relevant Income Tax and NI before making payments to workers.

Small companies however can still leave that decision to the off-payroll workers' intermediary.

Small incorporated companies meet two of these criteria:

  • fewer than 50 employees

  • annual turnover of less than £10.2m

  • balance sheet assets below £5.1m.

Small unincorporated companies must have an annual turnover of less than £10.2m.

Software changes

  • A new option has been added to the Set Options screen in Payroll. The Allow Off-Payroll Workers option controls whether off-payroll workers can be maintained in Payroll.

  • If the new option is used, employee records can be recorded as off-payroll workers by selecting the Off-Payroll Worker option on the Employee Details & Bank screen.

  • A new off-payroll worker is assigned 'Start Declaration C' status for the P45, and their tax code is set to 'BR Cumulative'.

    For off-payroll workers, fees charged to clients (known as 'deemed direct payments') must be subject to tax and NI deductions, and employer NI must be paid.

    Off-payroll workers are processed in Payroll in the 2020-21 tax year as any other employees, with these differences:

    • Off-payroll workers are responsible for managing any student loans, postgraduate loan deductions and pensions, so these areas of Payroll do not apply to them.

    • In the FPS file sent to HMRC for each pay period, these workers are indicated in the submission as off-payroll workers.

    For the employer, these differences apply:

    • Employers cannot offset the Employment Allowance against Employer NI paid for off-payroll workers. The Employment Allowance form in P32 Processing excludes Employer NI paid for off-payroll workers.

    • Employers are not responsible for student loans or postgraduate loan deductions for off-payroll workers.

    • Employers are not required to pay statutory payments to off-payroll workers.

    • Employers are not required to enrol off-payroll workers into pensions.

Applies to

It is the responsibility of the client/employer to determine whether any of their workers are affected by the new rules for off-payroll working.

Deemed direct payment

The portion of the fee subject to tax and NI is referred to as the 'deemed direct payment'.

The deemed direct payment is calculated as the value of the payment to a worker's intermediary:

  • less any VAT

  • less the direct cost of materials used in providing the service

  • less expenses that would also be deductible from taxable earnings if the worker was an employee.

Deemed direct payments for off-payroll workers must be included in the calculation of the Apprenticeship Levy.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

For details of the changes to off-payroll working for clients from April 2020: www.gov.uk/guidance/april-2020-changes-to-off-payroll-working-for-clients.

To understand off-payroll working (IR35): www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-off-payroll-working-ir35.

To check employment status for tax: www.gov.uk/guidance/check-employment-status-for-tax.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay

The Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave (SPBP) allowance and leave entitlement for primary carers who have lost a child is being introduced from 6 April 2020. Primary carers include parents, adopters, foster parents and guardians.

The payment follows the same administration process as other statutory payments such as paternity pay. Payments will be paid out by employers and claimed back through payroll processes.

Payments will be treated as earnings for tax and National Insurance Contributions purposes, as per all other Statutory Payments.

Primary carers are entitled to two weeks leave following the death of a child under 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. The leave is paid at the statutory rate if the employees has 26 weeks continuous service. Employees with less than 26 weeks continuous service can request two weeks unpaid leave.

Software changes

Opera 3 Payroll manages SPBP payments by the use of a Payment Profile type.

The PAYE, NI & Statutory Payments form includes fields to record the earnings related percentage rate and the standard rate for SPBP. These are updated automatically along with the other statutory payment rates.

The FPS and EPS submissions also include details for SPBP.

If an employee is entitled to leave without payment because they don't have 26 weeks continuous service, that leave can be recorded using the Absence form in the Personnel application.

Applies to

All employers.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

For details about Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay, visit www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-first-parents-who-lose-a-child-entitled-to-bereavement-leave.

Real Time Information submissions

Software changes

These new details are included in the FPS in the 2020-21 tax year:

  • An indicator for off-payroll workers.

  • Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) paid to an employee in the tax year to date.

  • Class 1A Employer National Insurance paid for employees who received termination awards over £30,000 or sporting testimonials over £100,000.

  • The date company cars were first registered, and zero emissions mileage if relevant.

These new details are included in the EPS in the 2020-21 tax year:

  • An indicator that the Employment Allowance is either being claimed for the 2020-21 tax year, cannot be claimed or is no longer being claimed, and the relevant trade sector.

  • SPBP recovered and SPBP NICs compensation in the tax year to date.

Applies to

FPS and EPS submissions sent to HMRC for each pay period.

Effective

From From 6 April 2021.

More information

www.gov.uk

New Tax Year History view

A new Tax Year History view has been added to the Action menu of the Payroll Processing form.

This new view displays year-end pay details by tax year for the employee. The details displayed in this view are recorded at the end of each tax year when the End of Year Cleardown is run in Payroll.

This feature is available from the start of the 2020-21 tax year and so the first year's pay history that can be viewed is for the 2019-20 tax year. Pay history for later years will be recorded at the end of each tax year. A new option called Keep ... Tax Year History on the Set Options form in Payroll controls the number of years of tax year history that are saved, up to a maximum of 20 years.

Tax Year History view
New Tax year History view

The NI Code Values view displays all the employee's NI codes in a tax year alongside the pay period when they changed. This view is useful if the employee has more than one NI code during a tax year.

The existing History view has been renamed to Pay Period History. This view still displays a period-by-period summary of the currently selected employee's payroll history.

Payroll Update server-side process

The Payroll Update process completes the pay period ready for the next pay period.

In this release of Opera 3 SQL SE, this data intensive process has been converted to a server-side process.

Heavy duty ‘Data Intensive Processeses’ are run from the PC workstations but all the processing work is done on the Opera 3 SQL SE server. As well as minimising the impact on your IT network, this means that your workstations are not used at all for the intensive work that a heavy-duty process is doing. Instead they are available for other tasks. These Data Intensive Processeses are included in all the applications in Opera 3 SQL SE.

Benefits of running processes on the Opera 3 SQL SE server

There are many benefits of running data intensive processes on the server rather than on the workstation PCs.

Feature

Benefit

Data intensive ‘heavy duty’ processing is completed on the server.

This means that your network is not burdened by unnecessary network traffic so your other work won’t be affected. Also, the PC workstations don’t do the work so you can use them for other tasks whilst the server side processes are working.

Scheduling is built in with desktop notifications or email with attachments.

Scheduling your heavy-duty processes for outside of work hours is a major benefit. This means your other tasks are not affected, and you are given notifications when you get in to work in the morning. If you use groups in Payroll, you can also schedule the Update to run for different groups one after the other.

 Scheduling is built in so no additional cost is incurred to use the feature.

Heavy-duty processes can be run in the background.

Some processes are suited to be run in the background so that the workstation PCs are released to run other processes in Opera 3 SQL SE.

The user menu access feature can be used to control whether tasks can be run later or run in the background.

You can use the menu access feature to control whether users can schedule tasks to be run outside of office hours or in the background, .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MTD for VAT fraud-prevention

The fraud-prevention changes were also included with Opera 3 SQL SE (2.63.00).  

HMRC has recently clarified requirements for software vendors to include fraud-prevention details in the VAT Return.

Fraud-prevention changes for MTD VAT Returns are included in this release of  Opera 3 SQL SE.

HMRC has not clarified exactly when they will start to reject VAT Returns without these fraud-prevention changes. However, customers who send MTD VAT Returns must upgrade their software to avoid VAT Returns being rejected by HMRC.

User guides

Opera 3 guides are available in the User Guides section at docs.pegasus.co.uk.

Guide

Description

Legislation & product changes guide

This guide includes the legislation and release details for Pegasus Opera 3 (2.70.00) in PDF format.

Checklists guide

This guide describes the steps necessary to upgrade to Pegasus Opera 3 (2.70.00) and then complete the payroll year-end and start the new tax year.

Installation guide

This guide includes instructions for upgrading Opera 3.

Software Requirements guide

This guide lists the editions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Windows desktop, web browsers and Microsoft .NET supported for Opera 3.

SQL Server Licensing guide

This guide explains the licensing options for different editions of Microsoft SQL Server. It explains how to calculate the number of CALs (Client Access Licences) required for Pegasus products that use Microsoft SQL Server for the datastore.