Automatic penalties not a given
Following on from last week’s article concerning contractors’ exposure to automatic RTI penalties from 6th March 2015, HMRC have since announced that employers will not incur penalties for delays of up to 3 days in filing PAYE information.
There is no change to the filing deadline, so employers must lodge their Full Payment Submission (FPS) on or before each payment date unless the circumstances set out in the Running Payroll Guide (gov.uk) apply.
To help reduce the issue of unnecessary penalties, HMRC will be closing around 15,000 PAYE schemes next month that have not made a PAYE report since April 2013 and which appear to be redundant. Those affected will receive a letter from the Revenue telling them about the planned closure and what to do if they are, or should be, operating PAYE.
Any employer that has received a late filing penalty for the period 6th October 2014 – 5th January 2015 and was 3 days late or less should appeal online by completing the ‘Other’ box and add ‘Return filed within 3 days.’
This latest relaxation of RTI penalties is not only a recognition by HMRC of the fact that employers still need time to get to grips with the new system but also that the department may have data issues that would bring shame upon the department in the event that it started penalising hoards of small businesses.
Late payment penalties are continuing to be reviewed by HMRC on a risk-assessed basis rather than be issued automatically.
Following consultation, HMRC will review the operation of changes to the PAYE penalties by 5th April 2016.
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