National Minimum Wage

Introduced in 1999 the NMW is the lowest amount employers can legally pay their workers. HMRC makes sure that employers comply with the rules and most workers, including part-time, casual, home-workers and agency workers, are entitled to be paid the NMW. It doesn’t apply to the self- employed or members of the armed forces. Other exceptions include apprentices in the first year of their apprenticeship.

There is a separate Agricultural Minimum Wage for most Farm workers and others in agriculture, enforced by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. NMW rates are based on the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission - whose members include employers, employee groups and academic experts - and last went up on 1 October 2008. They are currently £5.73 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older, £4.77 per hour for workers aged 18-21 and £3.53 per hour for all workers under 18 but above compulsory school age. Tips and other service charges can only be counted towards the minimum wage when they are paid through the employer’s payroll.

Complaints about non-payment of the NMW can be made to the NMW Helpline: 0845 600 0678.

Payroll Giving and Gift Aid

Payroll Giving is an easy and tax-effective way to donate money to charity. Donors can give to any charities they choose directly from their pay or from their company or personal pension.

Charities appreciate receiving regular donations as it makes it easier for them to budget; and donors benefit because the money is taken from their earnings or pension before tax is worked out so they pay less tax.

Employees ask their payroll department to take donations from their gross pay, before calculating PAYE but after National Insurance Contributions. If an employee is a basic rate taxpayer, giving £10 only costs them £8, because they save £2 tax (20 per cent of £10). A £10 donation would only cost a higher rate taxpayer £6. The employer sends the money to an HMRC-approved Payroll Giving Agency. These agencies run the scheme on behalf of employers and pension providers and are themselves charities. They forward the money to each charity as requested, usually taking a small administration fee. Sometimes employers pay this fee so the charities receive the full donation.

Gift Aid

When a UK taxpayer gives money to a charity or Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC), they have already paid tax on that money. Because charities are generally exempt from tax, they can reclaim basic rate tax on the donation. This repayment, made by HMRC, is known as Gift Aid.

The donor makes a Gift Aid declaration, usually by filling out a simple form, giving permission for the tax to be reclaimed.

The basic rate of Income Tax is 20 per cent. This means for every £1 qualifying donation received, the charity or CASC can claim repayment of 25 pence. So if Emma gives £10 to her favourite cat charity using Gift Aid, the charity actually gets £12.50.

To use Gift Aid, the donor must pay at least as much Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax as the amount being reclaimed, usually in the same tax year, and only UK tax counts. For every £1 donated between 6 April 2008 and 5 April 2011, the charity or CASC will also get an extra three pence transitional relief. This is provided by the government to give charities time to adjust to the two per cent reduction in basic rate tax since 6 April.

Air Passenger Duty (APD)

When an aircraft takes off from a UK airport, the airline operator has to pay air passenger duty (APD) based on the number of chargeable passengers on board. It doesn’t matter where the flight was booked.

Airlines don’t have to pass the charge on to passengers but many do. For convenience, they include it in the ticket price with other taxes and charges.

Small aircraft and short pleasure flights are exempt from the tax, as are departures from the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Not everyone on board is chargeable. Exemptions include cabin attendants and children under two without their own seat.

Destinations currently fall into two charging bands but from November 2009 this will change to four. Within each band there is a reduced rate for the lowest class of travel, normally economy.

An estimated £1.8 billion revenue collected by the Government of UK.

Airlines submit monthly returns and payment to HMRC.

Sometimes, people ask HMRC for a refund if they miss or don’t take a flight they’ve booked. No APD would have been due for them if they weren’t on board when the plane took off but as it’s the airline that’s taxed; they need to ask the airline for reimbursement.

So if you ever book a flight, but do not travel, you may not be able to get a refund for the cost of your ticket, but surly you will for your APD.

Student Loan

Thousands of students have just started at university. Many of them will have a student loan and may use it to pay for tuition fees, rent, baked beans and the occasional pint. But eventually the loan has to be paid back.

This is where HMRC comes in. Student loan accounts are administered by the Student Loans Company (SLC), but HMRC collects repayments on loans to students who started higher education from August 1998 onwards.

Borrowers start paying back their loans from 6 April after they leave university or college, although they only have to make repayments when they are earning more than £1,250 per month.

The amount repaid depends on gross income, but borrowers can make additional repayments to SLC, if they wish.

So how does HMRC collect repayments? For employees, the employer deducts repayments from gross earnings through PAYE, along with income tax and National Insurance contributions. Employees who also have to complete an annual Self Assessment (SA) return may need to make extra repayments if they have other sources of income.

Self-employed borrowers complete an annual Self Assessment return. The automated SA calculation works out their repayment which is included in their SA liability for the year.

Facebook Lite vs Twitter

So Facebook has finally felt the threat from Twitter? Why is Facebook trying to compete with all the social networking sites?

Facebook has started testing a new service tailored for mobiles and slow internet connections.
They are currently testing a simplified version of its social network service aimed at countries where Internet bandwidth is limited

According to Facebook, the test invitation was sent to a larger number of users 'by mistake'.
A lot of the current users began trying to sign up to the service without success.

Below is a snap shot of the new look of Facebook Lite.

A Facebook spokesman said, 'We have not opened up access to lite.facebook.com to all users at this time. 'People who are not part of the test and are trying to access "Lite" will be directed to Facebook.com as usual."

The site is currently on trial in India and there are plans to extend this to Russia and China.

A statement made by Facebook said the new service would be a "faster, simpler version similar to the Facebook experience you get on a mobile phone". "Facebook Lite is a fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept friend requests, write on people's walls, and look at photos and status updates," the statement continued.

"We are currently testing Facebook Lite in countries where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience."

Industry experts are seeing the development as the latest move from Facebook to take on Twitter. The question is, are they going to be able to compete with Twitter even though they are the largest social networking sites? I mean we are talking about instant messaging and having people follow you as they do on Twitter. Twitter has had a great start to this, and has a tremendous amount of users in such a short period of time.

The one advantage Twitter has is, it has celebraties using it, which obviously means fans signing up to follow them, bringing them more users. Facebook have more than 250 million active users, although more than 70% of these are in Europe and North America. Twitter has about 45 million.

In developing countries, where the infrastructure for broadband is limited, mobile phones are emerging as the dominant way for the internet to develop. An improved version of Facebook that loads and runs effectively on a mobile would enable the firm to expand into these markets.

The news of Facebook Lite comes just days after Facebook acquired content-sharing service FriendFeed. The service offers a "real-time" search engine that lets users know what is happening currently on any given subject. The purchase caught many industry watchers by surprise, even though the two companies had been talking on and off for the past two years.

I have to say Twitter has a lot of businesses using it to have their customers following the. Also the feature to be able to find anyone and follow them without having to be a friend as appealing to a lot of us. As with Facebook it is mainly friends and family, basically the people you know.

So who is going to be the winner, Facebook or Twitter? Do let me know who you use or like by leaving your comments below.