It's official: RTI is confusing for small employers. HMRC have published new Real Time Information (RTI) research findings; “Managing Pay As You Earn in real time: challenges faced by micro-employers”. This looks at what drives reporting errors and how HMRC can help micro-employers meet RTI reporting requirements.
The report shows that dates and deadlines are the biggest single challenge for employers and the main cause of error.
- Under RTI, employers are required to submit a Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC on or before the date that payments are made to employees, and may also need to file an Employment Payment Summary (EPS).
- Many are still confusing the PAYE payment deadlines with deadlines for submission of the FPS and don't understand the different processes or the numerous new abbreviations.
The report includes a number of key findings, and makes two recommendations:
- HMRC should focus on providing better rather than more support by generating more accessible resources, such as a road map to guide micro-employers through the process, highlighting the key requirements to be aware of, with links to the relevant detailed information already available, and a summary of important dates to remember.
- HMRC should introduce clarity and consistency on RTI penalties. The penalty system is an existing communication channel and could be used to raise awareness of the causes of penalties by including more detailed information in the penalty notice letter itself, or signposting to a diagnostic tool to help micro-employers to identify the cause of error.
Links
Penalties: RTI (Real Time Information) for PAYE
Our guide includes details of submission deadlines as well as late filing penalties.
RTI glossary
This explains the main abbreviations used by HMRC and agents
External links
HMRC research document Managing Pay As You Earn in real time: challenges faced by micro-employers.