The Chancellor George Osborne has delivered his Summer Budget 2015 this week which sets out the new government’s plans.

We thought some of the key points for payroll would be helpful

  • A new compulsory national living wage for employees aged 25 or over will be introduced in April 2016, this will be set at £7.20 an hour and rising to £9.00 per hour by 2020
  • The National Insurance Employment Allowance for small firms will be increased from £2000 to £3,000 from next year 2016
  • From April 2016, companies where a director of a company is the sole employee will no longer be able to claim the Employment Allowance
  • Employee tax-free personal allowance will be raised to £11,000 next year. After that, the personal allowance will always rise in line with the National Minimum Wage (NMW)
  • The higher tax rate will rise to £43,000 next year from 2016
  • Working-age benefits will be frozen for four years, but statutory benefits like maternity pay will be excluded from this
  • Student maintenance grants will be abolished from 2016, and replaced with loans, which people will start to pay back when they earn over £21,000 per year. The maximum value will be increased to £8,200 per year, keep an eye out on our blogs as we have more on this subject
Written by Stewart Waddell
Published on July 13, 2015