Important Payroll Notice – Week 53 2021

Do you need to process a Week 53 this year?

Week 53 takes place when a company pay date falls on 5th April in 2021. Each year is made up of 365 days or 52 weeks and 1 day and when the extra day falls on your company payday, Week 53 comes into effect.

This year the 5th April falls on a Monday which increases the number of employees and businesses affected. Including weekly, fortnightly and four-weekly paid employees.

Does week 53 apply to monthly processed employees?

If all of your employees are paid monthly just process your payroll as normal. The content of this communication is irrelevant.

How will Tax & NI be calculated?

The NI calculation for week 53 will be processed exactly the same as every other pay period. The only change will be for tax calculations, altering every employee to a week1/month1 equivalent of their tax code.

Qtac will perform this action automatically when processing week 53. The software will ignore all previous tax and pay for the year and will perform a standalone calculation in that pay period.

By processing a week 53 payment an employee could inadvertently claim an extra weeks’ worth of tax-free allowance taking them over the annual threshold. In this scenario, an adjustment in the new tax year will be required and HMRC will issue a P800 form to any employee owing tax. Typically any tax owed will be automatically collected in instalments in the new tax year. However, if this is not possible they will write to the employee directly.

Can you avoid a week 53 calculation?

You can’t avoid processing a week 53 payment if your employee payday falls on the 5th of April. Failure to process a week 53 when required will throw out your pay dates.

Further Information

For further information on the week 53 process follow the link below and navigate to the “Week 53” Payments section.

https://www.gov.uk/payroll-annual-reporting/send-your-final-payroll-report/

If you have any questions about the above article give our support team a call on 0117 9353500 (opt 1).

Alternatively, take a look at our knowledge bank article on the end of year procedures.

https://support.qtac.co.uk/support/solutions/articles/17000085768-end-of-year-procedure