Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Should RTI be delayed........

25th Jul 2013
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Some interesting comment today from Kate Upcraft, payroll adviser at ISIS. Kate is of the view that RTI should definitely be delayed as she harbours concerns the system might not cope when the country's 16,000 biggest private companies make the switch.

Real-time reporting sees PAYE reported on or before the date payment is made, while changes will be reported as and when they occur, rather than at the end of the financial year.

The RTI system commenced in April (albeit the system was trialled in advance with reasonable success), however following criticism from stakeholders and institutes, allowances were made for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, allowing them to continue reporting their payrolls monthly until 5 October 2013 while they prepare, free of the threat of penalties.

That deadline has been pushed back until April next year, meaning "businesses will not be required to change their approach halfway through the tax year", HM Revenue & Customs said.
As with the current relaxation, businesses are still required to report through the new system, but are able to do so once a month, rather than each time they pay their employees.

Kate said she is amazed the Treasury has allowed HMRC to press ahead with plans to extend the scheme in the autumn while issues remain and that HMRC is overstating tax receipts "on a massive scale as they are corrupting employer data".

"Two of my clients have been asked for sums around £1m for one tax month that is not due," she said.

Additionally the National Audit Office highlighted a number of issues in a recent report, but HMRC has since reported the process is working well and said its evidence shows the administrative burden for employers is decreasing as a result.

An HMRC spokesperson said: "Real time filing of PAYE information will bring PAYE into the 21st Century, and will improve the operation of PAYE for employers, HMRC and employees. Over 1.57 million PAYE schemes have already started to report PAYE information in real time. This is a huge change. Few issues have been identified so far and those have been resolved quickly.

"Employers are joining RTI according to their normal payroll cycle, and for some, it will take a little while to get into the routine of reporting RTI. In the first year, we want to support them in meeting their new obligations. But we are not complacent and are taking any reported issues seriously. We are working with employers and representative bodies so we can fully understand these issues, resolve them and amend our guidance.

"Having listened to stakeholders, we recently announced that ministers had decided to extend the temporary easement for small employers, originally announced in March 2013, from 5 October 2013 to 5 April 2014."

Overall therefore keep looking at the bestonlineaccounting website for continued insight as to how RTI is affecting business!

Tags:

You might also be interested in

Replies (1)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By User deleted
25th Jul 2013 21:09

What annoys me ...

... is that the companies with the greatest resources (financial, physical and temporal) to implement RTI are the last required to do so. Those with the least of those resources are forcced to de-bug the sytem at great personal cost (financial, temporal and mental).

Thanks (0)