From 1 September employers must top-up the wages of their staff on furlough to at least 80% of their usual wages, as the CJRS pays only 70% of wages up to £2,187.50 per month.
Employers may choose to take staff off furlough, but possibly not the entire workforce at the same time. For example, it makes sense to continue to furlough employees who are long-term sick, as the employer can reclaim more of the cost under CJRS than they can if they paid statutory sick pay.
HMRC has changed its guidance for employees who move off furlough or flexi-furlough part way through a claim period (eg the month of September). Now the employee’s usual hours should only be calculated up to the last day of furlough instead of to the end of the claim period. This applies for claims submitted on and after 14 September 2020, earlier claims do not have to be amended.
Where the CJRS claim covers 100 or more employees the employees’ details can be submitted as a spreadsheet using one of the HMRC templates. The HMRC .xls template has now been fixed so it can be used again.
However, all fields on the template need to be completed in all cases, including those fields for usual hours and actual hours worked. That would seem unnecessary where the employee is full-furloughed (ie works no hours), but if all fields are not completed the spreadsheet may be rejected.
This instruction applies even if the overall claim period starts before their individual furlough start date and, or ends after their individual furlough end date.
Written by the Tax Advice Network