Returning NHS workers targeted by tax avoidance schemes

Liaison Workforce

HMRC has issued guidance to those returning to the NHS workforce, after finding that a number of people were being targeted by unscrupulous promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

The schemes being offered to people often use an umbrella company and usually consist of two payments to the recipient – one declared as earnings going through the umbrella company payroll, often at a low flat rate or National Minimum Wage, and the second is a payment the umbrella company will declare to be not taxable and describe as a loan, annuity, shares, capital advance or similar.

These schemes are an attempt to disguise the true level of payment being made to the individual in order to pay a lower rate of Income Tax and National Insurance contribution.

At Liaison Workforce, we remain vigilant against such schemes and those attempting to run them. Our TempRE solution is available for trusts and health boards to book, timesheet and pay returning workers, at a time when they are needed most. This means that both returning staff members, and the NHS organisations they are returning to, have the reassurance that as our systems manage their payroll (PAYE) function, they will not be unknowingly partaking in tax avoidance schemes.

Full information on the schemes identified by HMRC can be found here.

To discuss the setup of TempRE for your NHS organisation’s returning workers, please speak to Laurence Ansell on [email protected], or Jack Mazzina on [email protected]