Armada Marine Ltd

Although you may consider yourself to be an independent contractor, when using AMGL you will be classed as an employee of the umbrella company (AMGL) and will carry a temporary MLC approved seafarer’s contract each time you start a new assignment showing the new location, rates and vessel information. AMGL will handle your PAYE and National Insurance contributions each time you are paid. 

AMGL will arrange a business-to-business contract between themselves and the recruitment agency, with you named as an AMGL employee. You will then submit timesheet and expenses information every month/week to AMGL (depending on the agency requirements) and AMGL will then invoice the agent/client for the work you have done. 

If you are a resident outside of the UK, AMGL can offer you the same professional payroll services and insurances as above. As every country’s rules are different, we would need to assess on a case-by-case basis how AMGL would be able to serve your requirements. Please contact us for further details on how AMGL can assist you. 

- Daily fees, so you only pay for the days you work. 

- You will receive a payslip for each payment made as your record of taxes/national insurance deducted and paid over to the HMRC (or international tax authority where applicable). Taxes are deducted before you are paid. 

- Once you have sent over your initial joining documents there is very little admin, it is all taken care for you. 

- You can work for multiple agencies and keep one employer, as AMGL can invoice multiple clients for separate contracts as required. This helps keep your tax code stable with HMRC and easier for you to predict your net pay. 

- You will have a MLC approved Seafarers Employment Agreement.

- Insurance cover is typically included in the fee which includes Employers Liability, Public and Product liability. 

- AMGL can invoice for both timesheets and expenses together, so you don’t need to invoice the client for your expenses separately. 

- Using a Guernsey based employer means that there is no UK Employers NI due on any work done in foreign waters, or foreign flagged moving vessels in UK waters. That can often mean the agency can give better rates to personnel as they don’t have to account for the 13.8% NI before offering you a day rate. 

- As an AMGL employee you will receive a P60 at the end of the tax year. This helps with your end of year SED claim (Seafarers Earnings Deduction) to get tax relief if you work offshore. 

- AMGL fees are VAT free as AMGL is a Guernsey registered company. 

- No need to complete a tax return unless you have other income in addition to your AMGL earnings (in which case you will have to declare all your earnings and inform HMRC of taxes already paid through AMGL via your tax return). 

Once you have procured a contract from an agency, you would register with AMGL by completing the joiner form and sending in your supporting documents.

AMGL will contact the agency for the assignment information, and arrange for a business-to-business agreement to be made between the Agency and AMGL for your assignment. 

The agency assignment information will be used compile your MLC compliant Seafarer’s Employment Agreement (S.E.A.) which will be issued to you electronically for signature on phone or laptop/PC. 

You send AMGL your signed timesheets / expenses at the specified schedule that your agency requests invoices for. EG monthly, or twice monthly, or at assignment end. 

AMGL sends an invoice for your timesheet / expenses to the agency. 

The agency pays that invoice in line with their payment schedule. It’s worth checking what this is with the agency before you sign up as they can vary from 7 to 45 days in some cases. 

Assuming the agency’s funds are received by midday on a Monday then they are included in that week’s AMGL Tuesday pay run. If they arrive after that they are put on the following week’s run. 

If you are being paid via PAYE, the pay run calculates how much tax/NI is to be deducted from your gross pay, based on the tax code that is provided to Armada by HMRC. 

Wage payments are then sent to employee bank accounts by the end of the day on Wednesday. The time funds arrive will depend on your bank’s processing times. AMGL can facilitate multi-currency payments. 

On your first pay run you are emailed your log-in details for Cintra (the payslip database) so that you can access your electronic payslips online each time you are paid. Payslips can be viewed or printed off at any time for your own personal records. 

P45s can be issued on request, and P60s are issued annually as per statutory requirements. 

Invoicing, payroll, and wages payment process. 

Public and Employers Liability Insurance. 

MLC approved S.E.A (employment contract) for each contract. 

Email/Phone support and advice for employees when they need it.

You will be sent a joiner form detailing all the required information which includes: 

- Your National Insurance number.

- Your Norwegian tax reference number (D number) if you have one. 

- Your personal contact details. 

- The personal bank account for your wage payments. 

You will also need to send us copies of the following: 

- Your passport, medical cert, survival cert and any relevant qualification certificates or competency certificates. 

- Proof of address – such as a driver’s licence, bank statement, utility bill or council tax bill or similar. 

- Your P45 (if you have one from the last 6 weeks). In the absence of a P45 there is a ‘current circumstances’ statement to select on the joiner form which can be used instead. 

Personnel will be issued an MLC compliant SEA (Seafarers Employment Agreement) which makes them an employee of Armada Marine (Guernsey) Limited. Therefore, please be advised that for UK residents PAYE contracts are issued, and UK tax and national insurance will be deducted and paid across to HMRC each time you are paid. The contract you will receive will show your Gross day rate – remember that the Armada processing fees will have been taken off the agency day rate. Once your information has been received, and the information on your assignment has been received from the agency you’re going through, you will be sent a contract for electronic signature. 

AMGL are unable to predict employees’ tax and NI. AMGL will receive a tax code from HMRC for an employee when they are first run through the payroll. If you send us a P45 (from the last 6 weeks) when you join, then the code on that will be used for your first pay. Employees can use the HMRC tax calculator (online) to predict take-home pay based on their current tax code. Your tax and NI are personal to you. HMRC will not discuss this with Armada. It would be beneficial to you to give HMRC a call before you are first paid, to check that they have you on the correct tax code based on the circumstances you are in at the time. 

If you’re an employee and work at sea, you may be able to reduce your tax bill by getting the Seafarers’ Earnings Deduction. To get the deduction you must have: 

- Worked on a ship. 

- Worked outside of the UK long enough to qualify for the deduction - usually a minimum of 365 days. 

- Been resident in the UK or resident for tax purposes in a European Economic Area (EEA) State (other than the UK) 

If you had more than one job, you’ll still get the deduction against your seafarer pay if you meet all the conditions. To get the deduction from your seafarer earnings you must have an eligible period of at least 365 days that’s mainly made up of days when you were absent from the UK. To see if you’re entitled to the deduction, work out if your days outside the UK were enough to make up an eligible period. 

It may be possible for you to consult HMRC and have your wages paid without deducting tax, they would do this by operating a tax code called NT.

To qualify for this code you must:

• be resident in the UK
• be in a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) employment
• be a seafarer working onboard a vessel accepted as a ship for Seafarers’ Earnings Deduction purposes
• fill in a Self Assessment tax return each year
• have a contract of employment of at least 12 months

If you don’t have a 12 month contract, you must have been in continuous employment with the same employer for at least 6 months, working outside the UK.

IR35 will not apply to employees of AMGL, as they are already employed and PAYE is taken care of for them. As an employee you may be also able to claim back taxes with your seafarer earning deduction allowance. 

AMGL is located in Guernsey, so there is no reduction in rates for UK Employers NIC (13.8%) as it is when associated with UK based payrolls companies. The only exceptions are if the work is on a UK flagged vessel in UK waters, a fixed platform including jack-ups  (irrelevant of vessel flag) operating in UK waters, or any UK onshore work. It is worth discussing with the recruitment agency whether or not employers NI is due on the assignment you will be attending and how it will be dealt with before the rate is agreed.