By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants. The Money Matters column appears in the Pembrokeshire Herald, the Carmarthenshire Herald and the Llanelli Herald newspapers.
The taxman at HMRC has published the latest edition of the Employer Bulletin, its regular electronic newsletter offering guidance for employers.
The latest issue includes features on –
- Reporting your payroll information accurately and on time
- Irregular payments and completion of Full Payment Submissions
- Starter Declaration on a Full Payment Submission (FPS)
- PAYE Settlement Agreements
- National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage – are you paying the correct rate?
- Advisory Electricity Rate for fully electric company cars
- Welsh Rates of Income Tax
- Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) webinars
- Postgraduate Loans
- Benefits and Expenses: Company cars
- Tax avoidance loan schemes – settle now
- Completing an EYU in respect of Employee’s National Insurance Contributions
- Employment Income: Draft Legislation
- Deadline for post 16 Child Benefit looms.
For help with payroll matters, you can contact the team at Claw Shaw Butler at our Carmarthen HQ.
The HMRC article on reporting payroll information is particularly useful.
It states –
Accurate and timely reporting of your payroll information is really important; it helps to ensure that your employees pay the right amount of tax, and is vital to the success of Universal Credit (UC).
UC is designed to increase the financial benefits of work and provide you with a more flexible workforce. Late or inaccurate reporting can negatively impact on your employees as UC payments are linked to the payroll information you report.
It is therefore very important to report your payroll accurately and on time, as changes in earnings can affect the amount of UC your employees receive.
The payment date you report on your Full Payment Submission (FPS) should be the earlier of the date an employee is paid or the date they were entitled to that payment, not the payroll run date, or another date from your payroll system.
It is important to check this and make any changes that are necessary to payroll software so that when you report, you use the correct payment date, as we often find that this is the reason why some employers receive a penalty.
If you are unable to report payments on time and have a reasonable excuse for filing late you should use a late reporting reason code.
Include the code for every payment on the FPS where the circumstances apply.
HMRC has again reviewed the effectiveness of the risk-based approach to late filing PAYE penalties and has decided to continue this approach for the tax year beginning 6 April 2018.
This means that late filing penalties will continue to be reviewed on a risk-assessed basis rather than be issued automatically. The first penalties for the tax year beginning 6 April 2018 will be issued in September 2018.
The approach will also include continuing to not charge penalties automatically if a FPS is filed late but within 3 days of the payment date and there is no pattern of persistent late-filing. This is not an extension to the statutory filing date which remains unchanged. Employers are still required to file their submissions on or before each payment date unless the circumstances set out in the ‘Sending an FPS after payday’ guidance are met.
Employers who persistently file after the statutory filing date but within three days will continue to be monitored and may be contacted or considered for a late filing penalty.
Similarly, late payment penalties will also continue to be raised on a risk-assessed basis rather than automatically, focussing on penalising those who persistently pay late and are of greatest risk.
HMRC will continue to review their approach to PAYE penalties beyond 5 April 2019 in line with the wider review of penalties and will continue to focus on penalising those who deliberately and persistently fail to meet statutory deadlines, rather than those who make occasional and genuine errors for which other responses might be more appropriate.
Internet link to the HMRC Employer Bulletin –
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employer-bulletin-august-2018
You can find out more about money matters on the Clay Shaw Butler website (under our news for business section) –
http://www.clayshawbutler.com/news/latest-news-for-business
We have a strong and experienced team with great local knowledge all geared-up to helping you get the very best from your finances – whether that is as an individual or as a business.
We stay ahead of the game by putting great store by continual professional development for our staff.
With Investors In People status at Clay Shaw Butler, we care passionately about making sure our staff have all the tools they need to serve you, our customers.
Weblink – http://www.clayshawbutler.com
The team at Clay Shaw Butler can be contacted on 01267 228500.
The team at Clay Shaw Butler are on Twitter. Look for @clayshawbutler.
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