Following the 2% cut in National Insurance contributions (NICs) in the Autumn Statement, some employers may find employees requesting to defer any discretionary bonus payments to take advantage of the reduced NICs rate from 6 January.

However, that could put more pressure on employers already facing a race against time to get their payroll systems updated by the deadline.

In the last few years, it has been the prevailing convention that legislation affecting payrolls part way through a tax year has been unhelpful to employers, and yet we have another change less than four weeks away.