Welcome to your software update for Tax Year 2019/2020.

This update of the software includes some new features and enhancements, together with any necessary legislative changes.  These notes provide information on all the improvements to the software. For details of changes to Rates and Allowances, click here.

• The rates and bands in the software for Tax, National Insurance, Statutory Payments, Student Loans, Auto Enrolment etc., have been updated for 2019/2020
• New bands for Earnings Arrestment Scotland added
• Employee and Employer GP Pension Rates updated
• Car Allowance values updated
• CO2 Lookup values updated
• VCA Car database updated
• P60 forms updated to report for year end 2018/2019
• When moving into the new tax year, the software will uplift tax codes as follows:

Welsh Income Tax

From April 2019, the Welsh Government will be able to vary the rates of income tax payable by Welsh taxpayers. Responsibility for many aspects of income tax will remain with the UK, and HMRC will continue to collect the tax.

A Welsh taxpayer will have a ‘C’ prefix to their tax code e.g. 1250L will be C1250L.

For further information on Welsh Tax Codes, click here.

Postgraduate Student Loans

From April 2019, Postgraduate Loans (PGL) are due for repayment via PAYE.  The repayment threshold is set at £21,000 with repayments at a rate of 6%.

A borrower could be liable to repay a Student Loan and Postgraduate Loan concurrently, as they are separate loan products. This means that, where applicable, employers must deduct both. Postgraduate Loan will take priority over Student Loan when a protected earnings order is in place. Postgraduate Loan will be zero if the employee has a Council Tax deduction or Earnings Arrestment Scotland.

To accommodate Postgraduate Student Loans in the software, we have made the following changes:

On the Employees | Details | Government tab (and on both the Employee Create and Employee Update Wizard):

• Existing Student Loan wording updated to If applicable, select a Student Loan Plan Type
• Postgraduate Student Loan Repayments? Yes/No options added, with No selected as default, underneath the existing Student Loan option

On the Employees | Opening Balances screen:

• Student Loan header renamed to Student Loans
• New Postgraduate Loan Deductions field

On the Payslip screen:

• We have added a new automatic payslip item for Postgraduate Loan Period Payments. It appears as Postgraduate Loan under Deductions
• We have added a new manual payslip item to cater for any overpayments, to be displayed in the Payments and Deductions sections, Adjustment | Statutory | Postgraduate Loan Refund
• Applying a Postgraduate Loan Refund will adjust the YTD value that is stored against the Employee
• Student Loan payslip item renamed to Student Loan Adjustment

All reports, where applicable, have been updated with Postgraduate Student Loan information.

The Postgraduate Student Loan changes will only appear starting from the 2019/2020 Tax Year.

Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) Regulations

Diesel cars registered after 1 January 1998 that meet the regulation have a 0% supplement i.e. the same rates as petrol cars. Diesel cars registered after 1 January 1998 that do not meet the regulation will now have a 4% supplement up to maximum of 37%.

You can identify diesel cars affected by the new regulation i.e. 0 % supplement, by using the new Fuel Type named Diesel Meets RDE2 Regulation under the existing Diesel option in the Type of Fuel dropdown list.