This month has seen the publication of the full details of the Coronavirus Job Retention Bonus (‘CJRB’). The CJRB is a one-off £1,000 bonus that can be claimed by employers for each employee that they kept employed for at least three continuous months following their return from furlough leave.
The bonus can be claimed for each employee for whom an eligible claim was made under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (‘CJRS’), provided they were continuously employed from the end of the last claim period made for them under the scheme, until the 31 January 2021. The employee is also not to be serving a contractual or statutory notice period in relation to their employment as of 31 January 2021.
There is also a minimum income threshold that applies to each employee, who must earn a minimum of £1,560 (gross) for the following tax months:
- 6 November to 5 December 2020;
- 6 December 2020 to 5 January 2021; and
- 6 January to 5 February 2021 (‘the Relevant Months’).
Employees must receive at least one payment of taxable earnings (of any amount) in each of the Relevant Months, and only taxable pay will count towards the minimum income threshold.
In order to claim, all payments made in the Relevant Months will need to be reported to HMRC through Full Payment Submissions via Real Time Information. There are also some steps you should take now to ensure you are ready to claim, such as:
- comply with your PAYE obligations to file PAYE accurately and on time under Real Time Information (RTI) reporting for all employees between 6 April 2020 and 5 February 2021;
- keep your payroll up to date and make sure you report the leaving date for any employees that stop working for you before the end of the pay period that they leave in;
- use the irregular payment pattern indicator in Real Time Information (RTI) for any employees not being paid regularly; and
- comply with all requests from HMRC to provide any employee data for past CJRS claims.
Provided you meet the above criteria, then you will be able to submit a claim for the bonus between 15 February and 31 March 2021.
Full eligibility criteria and information on the scheme can be found in the Government’s fact sheet here.
