• Posted 11th March 2015

HMRC’s Announcement on PAYE Filing Penalties

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced that employers will not incur PAYE filing penalties for delays of up to three days from March 2015. However, HMRC has also said that late filing penalties will continue to be reviewed on a risk-assessed basis than being issued automatically with no change in the filing deadlines. This means the filing should be made before each payment date. For stopping unnecessary issued penalties, HMRC will also shut around 15,000 PAYE schemes that didn’t made PAYE report since April 2013 and appeared to have been ceased. The affected schemes will be notified about this and what to do if they are or should be operating PAYE by the HMRC. From March 6, the PAYE late filing penalties will apply to the employers with less than 50 employees. If an employer has received an in-year late filing penalty for the period 6 October 2014 to 5 January 2015 and was late for 3 days or less, then he/she should appeal online by completing ‘Other’ box and add ‘Return filed within 3 days’. HMRC has also published a discussion document about potential improvements to the way in which penalties apply and failing to pay the amount owed to meet deadlines for returns or registration. The discussion is open for the participation until 11 May. HMRC is also considering how it should find the difference between those who intentionally fail to meet statutory deadlines or to pay what they should on time and those who make genuine errors. By 5 April 2016, HMRC will review the operation of the changes to the PAYE penalties following the consultation.