Bulletin, 26 April (Payment card lines, data publication, taxable costs, glossary of financial terms and Scheme consultation)

Payment card lines

All payment card lines for 2022/23 – including March – need to be approved by IPSA’s Validation team by this Friday 28 April to be automatically accrued into the last financial year as part of our year-end process.

If you have any outstanding payment card lines please action them as soon as possible.

Use this guide for more information.

Any lines still outstanding (unreconciled and in workflow) after Friday 28 April will be allocated to the current financial year (2023/24) if they have completed workflow by 31 May 2023.

Any lines outstanding after 31 May 2023 will be considered “costs not reconciled”, and the value of these lines must be repaid to IPSA.

To learn more about how to reconcile your payment card on IPSA Online, visit Card payments.

Data publication – 18 May

Next month we will be publishing details of MPs’ business costs for December and January 2023 as part of our routine publication of data every two months.

You can now access the latest batch of your business costs using the Publication Data service.

We recommend that you check your data before we publish and if you think we have missed anything, please contact us by 11 May 2023.

Taxable costs

Last month we told you about a change to the way some travel costs claimed by staff members may be taxed.

In most cases, claims for business travel are not taxable, but MPs and staff need to be aware of the guidance.

For more information, visit Taxable travel costs for MPs' staff on IPSA Online.

In addition, we have received some questions about tax arrangements for MPs’ own business costs. These have not changed recently.

You can view guidance including correspondence sent to MPs in 2019.

Please note, we cannot answer detailed questions about tax rules; these should be referred to HMRC.

Glossary of financial terms

If you are ever uncertain as to what a column heading refers to on IPSA Online or if a term used in our guidance is not immediately clear please refer to our Glossary of financial terms available on our website which should help to provide clarity. 

If there are any terms missing from the Glossary that you feel should be included, please let us know.  

Scheme consultation

There is still time to have your say on the latest proposed changes to The Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs.

In light of the expected changes to constituency boundaries and the repeal of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, we are looking at the impact on rules concerning Loss of Office Payments (LOOP) and winding-up payments.

We are proposing changes to the Scheme which would clarify the eligibility rules and ensure that they are fair and provide the appropriate support to MPs leaving Parliament.

We are keen to hear the views of MPs, their staff and our wider stakeholders on these changes and how best they should be implemented.

The consultation also asks some more general questions about the support provided to MPs and their staff when leaving Parliament.

View the full consultation document on our website.

How to respond

You can use our quick and easy online survey.

You can also email consultation@theipsa.org.uk if you prefer.

Please submit your response by 11.59pm on 2 June 2023.