Every time we engage someone to undertake some work (e.g. to deliver a lecture on a specific topic, contribute expertise to a project or undertake a service or task) we need to understand and agree how we will be paying them, and what the implications are.
For each engagement we need to assess whether the person is self-employed and can be paid without any need to consider income tax and National Insurance (NI), or whether they are employees and the payment needs to be routed via payroll and have appropriate tax and National Insurance (NI) deductions applied. The new IR35 rules extend this further and entail that income tax and NI may need to be deducted even when the person is not an employee of the University.
HMRC have recently further tightened their approach to how we engage individuals and the requirement to determine the correct payment method applies equally to low value assignments as it does higher value services. There is no lower limit that can be applied.
It is important that the University remains compliant with HMRC rules and we have set up a working group to identify and establish processes that will ensure we operate within the law but are practical and will help you pay people through the correct route.
If you have any questions regarding employment assessments, including the new IR35 rules, please contact the Payroll Office on payoffice@kent.ac.uk