PAYE RTI News
Lack of RTI Awareness Persists
March 25, 2013
A poll published by Accountancy Age has confirmed a persistent lack of awareness of the introduction of PAYE Real Time Information. The poll findings come just 2 weeks ahead of RTI’s launch by HMRC. These are the first findings of business awareness of RTI in recent months to be published by the accountancy profession, which collectively processes the bulk of all UK workforce payrolls.
The poll by Accountancy Age of their readers has revealed 84% of respondents confirmed “not enough information had been provided for clients to prepare” while only 14% consider the switchover is going "smoothly".
The Accountancy Age poll findings are consistent with numerous other surveys conducted by business bodies, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, revealing many employers are unaware of the implications of RTI for their businesses.
Advance preparation for RTI, in particular the need to ensure employer staff records and employee data is up to date, is crucial for the successful operation of RTI, because under real time reporting of PAYE, employers and HMRC need to share this information, which must match, in real time. HMRC has stressed the importance of advance data preparation but Accountancy Age’s findings suggest this message has not reached employers.
PayeRti.org has reported on the lack of awareness of RTI several times in previous months, as recently as the 11th of March, and it is a concern that no discernible progress promoting wider awareness among employers has been made since business bodies first flagged the issue in October 2012. The lack of general employer awareness of RTI present at this late stage, gives rise to the possibility of significant challenges arising from RTI’s implementation and the failure to minimise its impacts.
PayeRti.org understands that HMRC may update its own records for PAYE based on the first RTI submission made by each employer, so that HMRC’s record of each PAYE scheme’s employees will be based on the employers’ own data records, but these reports have not been confirmed.