Employee taxation advice

Most charities employ staff but the majority are paid through the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) system and few problems are encountered. However, there are always some special cases, and you may just want a helping hand from time to time. We can offer a tailored service that can just give you the support as and when you need it.

  • Volunteers – generally payments to volunteers can be tax-free, but you need to follow the rules for documentation and checking. We can check that your systems and guidance comply and special care is needed for volunteers using their own vehicles and claiming mileage.
  • Consultants – you may use some self-employed people for certain roles. However, the rules are strict and your charity will be fully liable if you should have put the payments through the PAYE system. We can help you to develop guidance for managers and assist with situations where you think mistakes may have been made in the past. 
  • Agency staff – changes to the VAT legislation means that it is harder now to avoid paying VAT on the whole amount including the actual salary. There are some exceptions for nursing staff and others and we can explain the rules.
  • Relief staff – as an alternative to using agencies, many charities set up a “bank” of relief cover. We can explain how you can use a ‘zero hours’ contract for these staff.
  • Benefits, expenses and forms P11D – we can help you to obtain a dispensation for some expenses, including a reasonable level of round sum allowance for volunteers.
  • Specialist categories - some staff such as sessional teachers fall into specialist categories and different rules apply.
  • Overseas employees and contractors – we can help you find appropriate local advice on the employment and tax issues arising from having employees in branches outside the UK. We can also advise on the rules applying to overseas staff or performers coming to the UK.
  • Redundancy – if you have to terminate someone’s employment for any reason, you need to take care to tax contractual payments and we can advise on elemetns that are tax-free.

We always provide an estimate of fees before we start working with you and will keep you informed of the costs involved. For protracted negotiations with HMRC, we will ensure that you have key decision points so you can consider whether to continue or whether to accept the ruling.

Training and guidance

We run training courses on all aspects of taxation for finance and HR teams. We can help you to develop your in-house guidance on employee and volunteer taxation issues.

Contact us on svinfo@sayervincent.co.uk or call 020 7841 6360 to talk to someone about employee taxation.