I just can't decide whether or not my payroll will have a week 53. As far as I can tell it won't, yet the information I have received is as clear as mud. I have done our weekly wages in advance as I'm on holiday next week and also put them through the bank as a future payment, the process date was 31/03/12, the next process date will be 07/04/12, which to me means that will be week 1 of the new tax year 12/13. Is this right or have I read the info wrong?

Rhianrach wrote:

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Tom McClelland wrote:

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In a leap year week 53 is for process date on the 4th or 5th.

In other years week 53 is just for process date on the 5th.

 

(Some software thinks about this for you, so you don't have to. )

-- Edited by Tom McClelland on Thursday 22nd of March 2012 03:58:32 PM

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 So it's just 52 for me then, when I run payroll again it should just be wk 1 ? I'm being dumb again but why do they need a week 53?

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 52 x 7 = 364

But a year has either 365 or 366 days in it. So a weekly payroll needs a wk53 every 5 years or so or the weeks would slowly slide backwards.

Just think, if you were running a 4 weekly payroll you'd have the heady excitement of week 56 about once every 20 years!

pinkdon wrote:

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Help! I can't decide either - our next payroll date is 6th April but as it's a Bank holiday payments are to be made on the 5th. Should I be running a week 53 or the first week of the next year? I can't get me head around it - it's been a bad day!

Thanks

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 HMRC has a special dispensation for this which makes everyone's life immeasurably easier. Where a pay run is made early because of a bank holiday on the normal pay day the pay run should be treated for PAYE purposes as if it had been made on its normal date. So treat those payments on the 5th as week 1 if they would normally have been made on the 6th.

EDIT: And this also applies if a payment is made LATE because of a bank holiday too.

EDIT: Linky here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/payroll/paydays/non-banking-day.htm