The employment allowance (EA) was increased to £3,000 from 6 April 2016, but entitlement was removed from single-director companies with no other employees, allegedly because they do not help create jobs.

All fairly straightforward, it would seem. But HMRC has been telling people, in webinars and on the helpline, that the new block on EA for one-person companies also applies even if there is another employee, but that employee is paid below the secondary threshold with the result that no secondary national insurance contributions (NICs) are due. Can this be right?