SPM60205 - Disputes, Decisions, Reviews and Appeals - The Dispute

Overview

Employers are required to pay statutory payments to their employees who meet the qualifying conditions. Only some of the amounts paid can be recovered by the employer through their monthly NICs and PAYE payments or by direct funding from their Accounts Office, part of Debt Management and Banking. Disputes may arise when:

• employers refuse to pay statutory payments to an employee
• DWP/SSA query non payment of SSP or SMP where the employee makes a claim to a state benefit
• an ECO finds an error whilst doing a payroll review
• the employer pays a statutory payment to an employee in error and wrongly recovers the money from the NI Fund, or
• employers recover the wrong rate from the NI Fund.

When an employer is liable to pay a statutory payment there must also be an employee with entitlement to receive it. Similarly, if an employee has an entitlement to a statutory payment, their employer is liable to pay it.

This means that in any dispute on liability or entitlement, there are always going to be two interested parties – the employer and the employee.

Unless compliance becomes an issue, the HMRC caseworker or decision maker acts as an impartial mediator between the employer and employee. In all cases, they will apply the law fairly to both parties to determine the correct entitlement and liability.