Coronavirus Pay??????

[langland]

Hi Guys
Has anybody received anything yet?
I have, but I dont believe that the company has paid me correctly.

On the UK Gov website and on Martin Lewis website it says that if your pay differs from month to month then your furlough pay should be calculated by using which ever is the highest of the corresponding month last year or the average over the last 12 months.
It also states that non discretionary commission and regular overtime should be taken into account when calculating.

When I received my digital pay slip I had just been paid 80% of my basic salary.
I emailed the F.D about this and he saiod that he has taken advice from an employment law expert and he has told him that i should only be paid 80% of my basic salary and only to include commision if I earn any (whilst I am not working).

Has anybody been paid that includes a usual commission, bonus or overtime?

 

[alimac]

got my 80% yesterday not subject to any bonus here

 

[JonMMM]

Paid our staff today. There is very little guidance from the government as to what you can claim. The fear for all employers is that you are going to claim and because of the situation the government are just paying the claim then will look more closely into it at a later date and try clawing it back. I can quite understand a company just paying the 80% of basic which they know there will be no problem with

 

[alimac]

Universal credit will top up also

 

[langland]

Paid our staff today. There is very little guidance from the government as to what you can claim. The fear for all employers is that you are going to claim and because of the situation the government are just paying the claim then will look more closely into it at a later date and try clawing it back. I can quite understand a company just paying the 80% of basic which they know there will be no problem with

The government has given this guidance

What parts of my pay are included in the calculation?

The grant paid to your employer will be calculated based on your regular, contractual pay. It will include:

• Regular wages. These are the normal wages or salary set out in your contract for doing your job.
• Non-discretionary overtime. This applies to guaranteed overtime set out in your contract.
• Non-discretionary fees. These are fees your employer has contractually agreed to pay for you, eg, chartered membership fees if your role requires you to be part of a professional association.
• Non-discretionary commission. This is commission that your employer is obliged to pay you due to the terms of your contract, eg, a certain proportion of a car's sale price for motor dealers.
• Piece-rate payments. This applies if you're paid for your output rather than your time, eg, a jeweller paid per ring or a journalist paid per article.

What's not included in the calculation?

Not all the pay and benefits you get as part of your job will be included. The following things won't be used to work out 80% of your pay:

• Discretionary commission. This applies where the commission is not part of your contract, eg, tips/tronc for waiters, or tips for hairdressers.
• Discretionary bonuses. These are bonuses that your employer can choose to pay, eg, if the company is doing well, but has no legal obligation to pay.
• Non-cash payments. Any payment you accept that isn't monetary, eg, accommodation included with the job.
• Benefits-in-kind. These are non-monetary parts of your benefits package, eg, medical insurance or a company car.

Looks pretty straight forward to me.
If the government ask for it back at a later date then it should then be deducted from the employees that it was paid to.

 

[JonMMM]

Is that from a government web site?

 

[langland]

Work out 80% of your employees' wages to claim through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

The above was from Martin Lewis website.
This link is government advice

 

[JonMMM]

You would really have to examine your contract, but most will state the bonuses and commission are discretionary (they may have always paid them, and always intended to) but its legal working to protect the company, for instance if you earn commission after x sales per month it could be used to stop you trying to group 3 months sales though all on the same month. If you work for a large company with lots of employees on different contracts, it may just have been too difficult to work out who was entitled and who was not.

Same could be true of working out how much people get each month (I can tell you that its a lot of work) so just using peoples basic is a lot simpler, depending on the company to do the calculations that you are after it might be easier and better for the company to lay people off.

Furloughing is still costing the company money as they either have to employ a HR department who still have to be paid by the company as they are not furloughed or use the services of an accountant, both options come at a cost which cannot be claimed back, and my business, as an example is not making any money at all, but still has all the same out goings .

 

[alimac]

My employer took an average of earnings from past six months also am i correct in thinking that its only a grant from the government that employers need to pay back at a later date?

 

[langland]

I really do not think that it is difficult to calculate either lookat the same pay for April last year or look at p60 and divide by 12 or 13 if paid 4 weekly.

Which ever is highest is the figure to use.

Simpler for the employer to just claim 80% basic pay, but the employee that has been furloughed on 80% may now only be getting 50% which could be the difference between eating or not.
Not in my case but a lot of people will be in that situation.
Also I am not one of these people who demand that the govenment have created lockdown so they should pay wages.
But.........
As they have offered to do so I think that its only fair that employers claim the correct amount for their staff.

 

[langland]

My employer took an average of earnings from past six months also am i correct in thinking that its only a grant from the government that employers need to pay back at a later date?

No people wont have to pay it back.

 

[river4ever]

No people wont have to pay it back.

You think???

Everyone will be paying it back for years upon years with tax rises in the future.
Just to cover wages is 10 billion a week. That not including less tax government are getting and the business grants at 25K per business.
So everyone will be paying for it in the future.

 

[alimac]

@ langland are you saying my employer talking bollocks as they told me it was actually a grant from the Government
to help keep them afloat but they need to pay it back used that as part of reason they declined to pay the remaining 20%
as they could not afford to do it ?

 

[joe516]

@ langland are you saying my employer talking bollocks as they told me it was actually a grant from the Government
to help keep them afloat but they need to pay it back used that as part of reason they declined to pay the remaining 20%
as they could not afford to do it ?

No people wont have to pay it back it is not a grant from the Government

 

[alimac]

Ok cheers lying rats that they are will have a verbal rant when i can speak to them lol

 

[langland]

They may have received some grants from the government to help to keep the company afloat, which they will haveto pay back but, they dont have to pay back your wages.
And as River4ever says, just as the british people had to pay for the cost of World War 1 and 2 we will have to pay these funds back over a period of time.
Cheers All

 

[alimac]

cheers @Joe & @langland for info will still have a rant anyways lol

 

[IANB]

Spot on @river4ever .We will pay this back through tax increases in future

 

[JonMMM]

Grants you do not have to pay back, loans you do.

The grants tend to relate to paying employees and business rates, everything else is a loan, and most companies do not want extra debt

There is a lot of different schemes out there and its getting complex.

Most employers will only pay the 80% as thats all they can claim, do more may bankrupt the company which means they cannot pay you anything. This is tough time for people but even tougher for some companies.

 

[alimac]

We will deffo all pay at the end of this one way or another