How should we deal with existing petitions already presented at court prior to 27 April?
You should speak to your advisors. We do not know presently how existing petitions will be dealt with by the Court. We do know that if any winding up order is made (based on a petition presented after 27 April), it could be found to be void and a creditor may face challenges. Even for petitions presented before 27th April, there is a risk that the Court will not be keen to make a winding up order so it is important that you look at the facts of your debt and weigh up all of the factors before deciding how to proceed.
Related FAQs
IR35 is an anti-tax avoidance regime which is intended to tackle (in HMRC’s view) the long standing issue of individual contractors providing their services or labour via an intermediary – which is usually a personal service company (referred to as a PSC). We’ll talk about PSCs here, but there are other types of intermediaries that are caught.
HMRC’s view is that this arrangement is often considered to be disguised employment and therefore a tax-avoidance arrangement.
So IR35 is essentially a test of employment status – and if, once you apply the test, the contractor should be an employee, they should then be taxed as an employee.
This is a concern for many businesses at the moment.
Firstly, the directors need to be mindful of their duties to creditors . Click here for further information on those duties and the measures introduced by the government to help support directors during these difficult times.
There is also a raft of funding and grants as well as commercial finance that might be available to you. Click here for further information or contact us if you would like to discuss further.
If you are coming under increasing creditor pressure, there are other options to explore like the new “moratorium” procedure, which allows viable businesses in financial difficulty to work with an insolvency practitioner to obtain at least 20 business days’ breathing space from creditors to allow the business to formulate a plan to deal with its financial problems.
If you have any concerns about the viability of your business you should speak to your advisors, whether that is your lawyers, accountants or an insolvency practitioner who should be able to help you.
Be careful, there is now a cap on the number of employees you can have on furlough at one time.
The number of employees you can claim for in any claim period starting from 1 July cannot exceed the maximum number of employees you claimed for under any claim ending by 30 June 2020. So this cap is going to be specific to each employer.
It may catch out, in particular, employers who had been rotating employees on furlough.
For those with variable pay, if the employee has been employed for a full 12 months before the period claimed for you, can take the higher of:
- The same month’s earnings in the previous year; or
- Average monthly earnings from the 2019/20 tax year.
For those who have been employed for less than one year you can use the average of their monthly earnings since they began their employment until the date they were furloughed.
If they have been employed for less than a month, work out a pro rata for their earnings so far, and claim for 80%.
Yes, however holiday pay during furlough must remain at the normal rate of pay and not the reduced furloughed rate. You can still claim for this period under the scheme but you will be responsible for any amounts beyond the maximum you can claim. Employers have flexibility to restrict when leave can be taken both during and after period of furlough in the normal way.
If an employee usually works bank holidays then the employer can agree that this is included in the grant payment. If the employee usually takes the bank holiday as leave then you would either have to top up their usual holiday pay, or give the employee a day of holiday in lieu.