Can Furlough Payments Exceed 2019-2020 Salary?

alembicbassman

A family member earned £17585 as an agency PAYE fixed term contractor according to their P60

They have already received £13217 in furlough payments based on their earnings for the tax year 2019-20 (which is what the agency are using to calculate the payments as there's no hourly rate)

The scheme is now running until March 2021, if they continue to receive payments to the amount of the previous ones they'll exceed their 2019-2020 salary. The agency said they are continuing with the scheme until March.

Is it likely that it'll max out at the 80% of last tax year's earnings with no further payments after that?

They just need to know in order to budget as it is unlikely they'll be back in employment before March 2021

Dox

Best idea is for them to check with the agency.

eamon

Not sure why the OP is interested with a family members yearly income. But I suspect that it has some relationship to working tax credits/benfits and the various thresholds. Probably best to post in the benefits section as there are more knowledgeable people there.

TBagpuss

How long was the fixed term contract? I believe  payment was based on working out the average pay, so if the original contract was for less than a year then it will have been worked out based on the average monthly/weekly amount paid for the periods they were employed, so the total may work our higher this year if they are effectively on furlough for a full year. 

If they worked a full year last year then the agency may have calculated the figures incorrectly,

alembicbassman

Total worked 2019-20 was 200 days over 3 contracts. Looks like the agency are calculating an average monthly salary for the 200 days worked last year, so the total will be more than last year's salary by March as they're paying around £2k per month in furlough. This is quite surprising because the agency never employs any musician on a 12 month contract. Typically they're 2-3 months at a time with 6 weeks off in between.