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EasyPay V19.31 Update – April Payroll & COVID-19 Part 2

EasyPay V19.31 Update – April Payroll & COVID-19 Part 2

The Gibraltar Government has made a number of further announcements since our last newsletter regarding the new measures for COVID-19.

Instead of repeating all of these in this short newsletter, if you are interested in a summary of these measures then I would recommend checking out the Gibraltar Federation of Small Business (GFSB) website. It offers a pretty good summary of the measures, with the latest updates and links to the related Government websites. A link to the GFSB site is here.

The full detailed text of the new regulations, that will be enacted into Gibraltar law, was released last week. A link to the text of the regulations is here

On Thursday 16th April, the list of affected businesses eligible to apply for assistance, was increased. This list of firms eligible for BEAT COVID support now includes security and cleaning related businesses, Courier and Freight businesses, Estate Agents, Bureau de Change and Wholesalers who do not have a tobacco licence. The Excluded Sectors listed in the Schedule continue to cover for example Law firms, Accounting firms, Gaming firms and all firms regulated by the GFSC.

April’s Payroll

For Affected Businesses

If you are an affected business, and have made an application for a number of employees to be classified as inactive COVID-19, then you will need to make sure that these employees do not receive a payslip this month. Any employee in receipt of the Government BEAT allowance, cannot receive any other type of earnings this month.

If you have EasyPay Standard, you will need to make these employees inactive. If you have EasyPay Professional, you should go to the Employee’s contract and change their Contract Status to Inactive COVID-19. This will ensure that it is not possible to accidentally create a payslip.

For All Other Businesses

For all other businesses, the April payroll will run as normal.

Payment of Tax and Social Insurance for April
We have contacted the Government for clarification on an earlier statement. It has been clarified that the announced waiver of the payment of PAYE/SI for this month’s payroll only applies to certain companies. If you are an affected company, that has successfully completed a BEAT application for one or more employees, then you should contact the Income Tax Office to confirm whether you need to make any payment for tax or social insurance this month.
In respect of all other companies, the Government is permitting companies to defer Tax and Social Insurance payments for up to 12 weeks.

Online Tax and Social Insurance Payments

In the last few months, the Income Tax Office has implemented a new website for companies to make Tax and Social Payments by Bank Transfer. This saves many employers from visiting the Income Tax Cashier to pay by cheque, which has been closed.

This website enables employers to provide the details of the payment they are making to the tax office and obtain a payment reference to use on the bank transfer. A direct link to this site is here

A new button to link to the website has been added in EasyPay in the Remittances section.

A new field for the Company Tax Identification Number (TIN) has also been added to the Company Settings Page. Each company will need to know their unique TIN number in order to make payments to the Income Tax office. This number is different to the PAYE number for the company. To find out your companies’ TIN number, you will need to call the Income Tax Office on number +350 200 74923.

Future Months

The Government is expected to make a statement on next month’s payroll in the next few days. It is currently not known if the same measures will apply to next month’s payroll. The statement is likely to be around Thursday 23rd April when the Government will announce whether the current lockdown is to be extended for another month. There is talk of some of the lockdown measures being relaxed potentially as soon as 1st May.

Online P8 Submissions

In the lead up to the end of the tax year, the tax office has begun testing the online submission of P8s. The Income Tax office may approach a few employers directly to test the facility. To this end, an option has been added to the Payroll section in EasyPay. There is an option on the Payroll options drop down menu to produce the new online submission file. Note: It is not known yet if this facility will go live this year or next year.

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