A guide for branches to help your members claim tax relief on their UNISON subscriptions
Firstly we would ask branches to review the information we have provided explaining the HMRC decision and what members have to do to submit a claim. It will help if you look at;
Articles in U magazine and FOCUS
The Healthcare web site
The claim form you can down load from the web site.
Having done so discuss the issue at your branch committee meetings. Remember that HMRC will not contact members to alert them to their entitlement to claim so help from UNISON will be invaluable to members. Decide how the branch will play an active role and be a point of contact for your members.
Whichever method you adopt we actively encourage branches to use existing methods of communication to let your members know about the decision and the official launch date, whether that is a newsletter, email, the union notice board or simply by word of mouth. If you do decide to play an active role please include references in any communications you make. If you do have follow up questions please raise these with your region in the first instance.
There are two pieces of information we ask branches to try to obtain that will be important to ensure members are able to provide the information required and send it to the correct tax office. Some members will already know or have access to this data but it is very likely others will not.
Therefore we are suggesting each branch contacts their payroll office to obtain;
- The address of the tax office that deals with the employer's PAYE returns (for most there will be just one).
- Details of the subscriptions paid by members for the tax years 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07.
The first should be straightforward to secure and although obtaining details of the subscriptions paid could be more difficult we want to encourage this course of action.
If you meet resistance to your request for the provision of subscription details it may help to point out that providing data in this way may well obviate the need for individual enquiries to be handled by payroll offices.
You might not get an instant response from the employer but remember that members will still be able to use the current claim form up to the end of March 2008. If the employer needs a few weeks to extract the data this still will be very useful in the long run.
If you are able to obtain this information and you want to play an active role, the following are some suggestions of the courses of action you may want to consider.
- In the information we have prepared we have avoided giving a branch commitment but you will want to let members know about the action you are taking to help them. You may want to let them know when you will have information available particularly on subscriptions paid.
- A simple but very effective approach would be to ask members to hand completed forms into the branch office (see also point 4 and 5).
- Promote sign up days where members can come along to a pre agreed venue and complete forms using the data you have been able to secure.
- We would suggest completed forms are submitted in batches to the appropriate tax office.
- You may also want to keep a register of completed claims so that you can follow up members who may be entitled to claim but have not done so.
- Consider what action you want to take for members who may have retired, or are on Maternity/sick leave who may be entitled to claim.
- If you do not know if a member is entitled to claim from the data provided please send details to the email address that will be provided to your branch via the service group mailing.
As the relief will also apply to all members of the 6 qualifying sectors who join the union in this and future years you may care to promote this as part of your current and future recruitment strategy.
