Sick Pay

[fattony]

I was wondering, is there any way of claiming back any sick pay from the government, I know I could pay statutory sick pay but I want to pay full wages, it would just be a bonus if we could claim anything back.

The employee will be signed off sick for 4 weeks as he is having a knee operation

[David Griffiths]

It depends on your circumstances.

You may be able to recover a proportion of the SSP paid.

Calculate your total NIC payable to the government for the month (the normal pay month ended on 5 April). That's the total employer and employee contribution. You can recover SSP paid in the same month to the extent that it exceeds 13% of the NIC total. If you make up the SSP to full pay, you cannot recover any of that.

So basically, the more employees that you have the lower your chance of the SSP paid exceeding the 13% and therefore being recoverable. There's also the element of chance - does your employee's sick period fall in one PAYE month or spread over 2? If the latter, then half SSP might fall in each period, reducing your chances even more. :(

[fattony]

They are paid £5800 so not sure would have to look into the figures, how much is SSP these days?

[David Richards]

They are paid £5800 so not sure would have to look into the figures, how much is SSP these days?SSP is £79.15 a week for employees who qualify. Most employees will qualify if they if they earn more than the Lower Earnings Limit (£97 per week), but the rules are a bit more detailed than that (e.g. you don't pay SSP for the first three days). Check the HMRC website (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/employees/statutory-pay/ssp-overview.htm) for full details.

If you use payroll software it should be able to work it all out for you - and calculate any SSP reclaim automatically.

[fattony]

Worth looking into then, do you pay it and then claim it back from hmrc?

[Christiane]

I claimed it back two years ago when I only had one staff and she went off sick for 6 weeks. You have to pay the staff (I only paid SSP) then you eventually get a cheque through the post. It took a couple of months. It does depend how many staff you have and how much PAYE you pay.

[linda503]

hi,everyone , nice to meet you!
I was wondering, is there any way of claiming back any sick pay from the government, I know I could pay statutory sick pay but I want to pay full wages, it would just be a bonus if we could claim anything back.

The employee will be signed off sick for 4 weeks as he is having a knee operation

[Tom McClelland]

We covered the subject of how much SSP can be recovered from HMRC in our payroll software (http://www.12pay.co.uk/Blog/EntryId/6/How-is-SSP-Recovery-Calculated.aspx) blog.

[David Richards]

I claimed it back two years ago when I only had one staff and she went off sick for 6 weeks. You have to pay the staff (I only paid SSP) then you eventually get a cheque through the post. It took a couple of months. It does depend how many staff you have and how much PAYE you pay.Normally an employer would just offset the amount of SSP they're allowed to reclaim against any other NI & PAYE due to be paid to HMRC. In your situation, with only one employee, there would have been no other NI or PAYE due - hence why you got a refund cheque instead.