PAYE RTI News
12,500 employer charges disputed with HMRC
June 17, 2014
At the Learn Centre’s annual conference HMRC admitted that there are 12,500 cases of disputed PAYE charges awaiting resolution. Speaking to delegates, RTI Programme Director Suzanne Newton accepted that those affected by the issue would be greatly concerned by this problem, although the number of schemes affected represents a small proportion of the UK’s 1.7 million PAYE schemes currently in operation. HMRC hopes to tackle the disputed charge cases over the coming three to four months.
Delegates voiced concern about the way issues with underpayments are handled by HMRC’s Employer Helpline, with many stating that they had experienced a lack of sympathy from HMRC operatives, and a tendency to blame the employer themselves or their payroll software provider for any errors. A significant proportion of delegates had also received underpayment notices, suggesting that there may be more disputed charges than HMRC are aware of.
Reported in Pay and Benefits, Education Director of the Learn Centre Ken Gurr stated that there is still room for improvement in RTI, and said that acknowledgement from HMRC that not all RTI issues are caused by employers and software providers would be helpful. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the way some errors are handled, saying “It is unacceptable for HMRC to send out underpayment notices which annoy employers that then spend time investigating the alleged underpayment only to be told when they contact the revenue - ‘don’t worry, it was a mistake’.”
Responding to the concerns raised, Ms Newton acknowledged that there was no single answer to the problems facing RTI, saying “We’re not saying it’s all down to employers or to software developers or HMRC […] It is a mixture of issues and some are HMRC’s”.
Commenting on this, the Learn Centre said: “it was nice to hear acknowledgement that the problems faced by many employers are appreciated by HMRC. In this regard, Learn is pleased to be working on the PAYE Taskforce with other representative bodies where we raise the issue of the impact RTI is having on employers. HMRC are fully aware that reporting in real time for some employers has been much more of a burden than they imagined it ever would be.”
The figure of 12,500 PAYE schemes admitted by HMRC represent those that have been placed formally in dispute with HMRC’s agreement. The actual number of PAYE schemes with discrepancies might be higher still on account of the continuing inability of employers who have not registered with HMRC for access to their business tax dashboard to view their PAYE balance (and their agents who are prevented from doing so) and HMRC’s implementation of an employer “payment tolerance” of £100 from April 2014. In effect discrepancies up to £100 between the amount paid by an employer and what HMRC was expecting based on the employer’s RTI reporting are exempted from debt recovery action or penalty. PayeRti.org reported on this change to PAYE regulations on 29 November 2013, New RTI penalty consultation launched by HMRC.
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