The Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001

Treatment of earnings paid otherwise than at regular intervals

7.—(1) Subject to regulation 3(5) and paragraphs (2) and (3), for the purposes of assessing earnings-related contributions—

(a) if on any occasion a payment of earnings which would normally fall to be made at regular interval is made otherwise than at the regular interval, it shall be treated as if it were a payment made at that regular interval;

(b) if payments of earnings are made at irregular intervals which secure that one and only one payment is made in each of a succession of periods consisting of the same number of days, weeks or calendar months, those payments shall be treated as if they were payments made at the regular interval of one of those periods of days, weeks or, as the case may be, calendar months;

(c) if payments of earnings, other than those specified in sub-paragraph (b), are made in respect of regular intervals, but otherwise than at regular intervals, each such payment shall be treated as made at the regular interval in respect of which it is due.

(2) Where under paragraph (1) a payment of earnings is treated as made at a regular interval, it shall for the purposes of assessment under these regulations of earnings-related contributions also be treated as paid—

(a) in a case falling within paragraph (1)(a), on the date on which it would normally have fallen to be made;

(b) in any other case, on the last day of the regular interval at which it is treated as paid.

(3) Paragraphs (1) and (2) shall not apply to a payment of earnings made in one year where by virtue of those paragraphs that payment would be treated as made in another year.

(4) Notwithstanding regulation 15, a payment to which paragraph (3) applies (“the relevant payment”) shall not be aggregated with any other earnings unless—

(a) other earnings to which paragraphs (1) to (2) do not apply by virtue only of paragraph (3) are paid in the earnings period in which the relevant payment falls; and

(b) those other earnings would have been aggregated with the relevant payment had paragraph (3) not applied.

(5) A relevant payment shall be aggregated only with the other earnings specified in paragraph (4).