Furlough

bluelamb

Hello.
Im looking for an answer to this:
A company can no longer pay the NI contributions due to the most recent lockdown. All company funds have dried up. 

Can an employee who wants to be paid furlough pay the NI themselves legally?

Grumpy_chap

If that situation is the full truth, then this is a company that has only a very limited future.  Hopefully it is not as dire as that and the company is simply tightening the belt.  Unfortunately, even without top-up, furlough is not free to the employer because of NI, holiday accrual, etc.  These amounts start to add up after a while.

I do not believe that the employee can pay the NI themselves.  There was a rule around furlough that all furlough grant received by the employer had to be paid in full to the employee.  If you paid out the NI contributions, then you would not be receiving the full grant.  I am sure others will give further detail on this.

What are your normal hours?  The employer, if they do not pay you furlough, should pay you as per your contract.  That may mean to still pay your salary even if there is no work to do.  Sometimes the contract will allow for lay-off without pay.  If you are on zero hours contract, then the employer can simply say there is no work this week.

What type of work / business is it?

Jeremy535897

There would be nothing to stop the employee agreeing to lend the company money, which it could then use to pay the employer's NI. The problem may be that if the company is insolvent, it may not be able to carry on in business at all, and it would not make sense for it to borrow money that it cannot realistically ever repay. It also begs the question, if the company is already defunct, as to whether the employee is genuinely being furloughed because their employment activities are adversely affected by coronavirus, and there is no prospect of job retention.