Paying people questions

TBagpuss

As others have said, the issue is not about making a payment direct to their bbank accounts, it is about ensuring that they are self employed. Normally I would expect a self employed person to raise an invoice, and for you to then pay tat. You may be invoicing the 3rd party and you need to have terms and conditions in place to ensure that you can manage your cashflow.

You may want to get your self-employed people to provide you with a signed indemnity confirming that they take full responsibility for tax an NI and will indemnify you in relation to any claims made against you by HMRC. It isn't cast iron, but may help if HMRC did take the view they were employees, and claimed tax and NI from you.

purdyoaten

Mistral001 wrote: »

Yes it was within the UK: Danske Bank (Northern Ireland Bank Ltd)

Despite having retired recently (sort of) I do consultancy work for two organisations who bank with Danske. Suppliers, staff, consultants, accountants etc are all paid by BACS- faster payment. I think that they would be extremely upset if any of them were to receive a £6 fee or any fee for that matter.

I would speak to your bank.

Is this another occasion where a UK bank thinks that NI banks are foreign?

Mistral001

purdyoaten wrote: »

Is this another occasion where a UK bank thinks that NI banks are foreign?

I do not think so as on both occasions the payments were from local firms. But I certainly know what you mean.

purdyoaten wrote: »

Despite having retired recently (sort of) I do consultancy work for two organisations who bank with Danske. Suppliers, staff, consultants, accountants etc. are all paid by BACS- faster payment. I think that they would be extremely upset if any of them were to receive a £6 fee or any fee for that matter.

I was told by my bank that if the payment came from the same bank or a sister bank that there would be no fee, but the payments came from different banks so I had to pay the fee. That was a couple of years ago, they might have changed their policies since.

Savvy_Sue

Mistral001 wrote: »

Yes it was within the UK: Danske Bank (Northern Ireland Bank Ltd)

Ah, now I know there are all sorts of issues in NI wrt moneysaving deals not being available in the same way as they are on the mainland, it's one of the reasons why we have a dedicated NI board.

I wonder though if Danske bank is actually a foreign bank, or looked like it to your bank, it sounds Danish to me ... even if it was operating as a UK bank (like Santander does now, even though they're really Spanish ...)

purdyoaten wrote: »

Despite having retired recently (sort of) I do consultancy work for two organisations who bank with Danske. Suppliers, staff, consultants, accountants etc are all paid by BACS- faster payment. I think that they would be extremely upset if any of them were to receive a £6 fee or any fee for that matter.

Too right I'd be upset, and I'd refuse to accept payment in that way ever again!

Mistral001 wrote: »

I was told by my bank that if the payment came from the same bank or a sister bank that there would be no fee, but the payments came from different banks so I had to pay the fee. That was a couple of years ago, they might have changed their policies since.

Even a couple of years ago, I NEVER heard of anything like this - who were you with? and I hope you're not any more!

Through work, I've been making BACS payments for several years, to all sorts of banks, including for staff salaries. Never heard of a charge being made to the recipient.

The only issue I've had since Faster Payments came in is that there are a very few accounts which don't accept FP, so you have to send a cheque. I don't know if I'd have been able to do a 'slow' BACS payment BEFORE FP started, and I wish, that if I had, I could now do a slow rather than a fast payment, because a slow payment would be easier for me, and probably faster for the recipient than a cheque which has to be posted, paid in and cleared.

Mistral001

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I wonder though if Danske bank is actually a foreign bank, or looked like it to your bank, it sounds Danish to me ... even if it was operating as a UK bank (like Santander does now, even though they're really Spanish ...)

Yes it belongs to a Danish group I believe, but then so do many UK banks, such as Santander, as you say.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Too right I'd be upset, and I'd refuse to accept payment in that way ever again!

My client basically told me that that was the way they were paying suppliers from then on (rather than by cheque) and if I did not like it, then tough. I could not afford to lose a client over £6. The client never came back to me in any case. I saw it, at the time, as a problem with the client trying to be a bit macho rather than a problem with the bank.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Through work, I've been making BACS payments for several years, to all sorts of banks, including for staff salaries. Never heard of a charge being made to the recipient.

Salaries are always treated differently to B to B payments, aren't they?. Joe Public would be outraged if they were charged to receive their salary.

purdyoaten

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I wonder though if Danske bank is actually a foreign bank, or looked like it to your bank, it sounds Danish to me ... even if it was operating as a UK bank (like Santander does now, even though they're really Spanish ...)

Danske took over the Northern Bank, one of the four 'big' banks in NI. It used to be the NI version of the Midland bank in much the same way as Ulster Bank was linked to Nat West etc.

Mistral001

purdyoaten wrote: »

Danske took over the Northern Bank, one of the four 'big' banks in NI. It used to be the NI version of the Midland bank in much the same way as Ulster Bank was linked to Nat West etc.

Yes, I remember years ago before the Northern was taken over by Danske, if you had a Northern Bank account, you always tried to go to go to a Midland Bank branch in mainland UK as they knew about the situation with regard to NI banks.


Just as an aside in NI, Danske have the following on their literature: "Danske Bank is a trading name of Northern Bank Limited..."