RTI late filing penalties / Pub payrolls

RTI late filing penalties / Pub payrolls

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Several of my clients are pub businesses with weekly payrolls - paid cash on a Sunday evening for the week just finished.  I have been filing RTIs each Monday which is not RTI compliant, but we haven't worried too much this year as there were no penalties being levied.  However from April I am aware that we need to find some way of being compliant.  Though at a seminar I attended before RTI started, they said that Fruit Pickers and Pubs would be allowed 7 days to file RTI - when I spoke to HMRC about this several months later they knew nothing about an exemption for Pubs!  I am therefore in the process of writing to each of my clients to ensure they understand what the penalties are if they do not give me the information in time - but I haven't been able to find anywhere how much the penalties will be - does anyone know?  I obviously want to be sure that my clients fully understand this and do not hold me responsible when/if they start getting penalties!

Also can anyone recommend a process which works for pubs?  It's not too bad with pubs on email who can send me the details on Sunday evening and make the payments on Monday (providing I am always in the office on Mondays!), but one of my pubs has no internet access and no mobile signal, so the only way I can see for her to be compliant is for her to ring me every Monday morning with the details.  It does seem ridiculous that small businesses have to adjust their processes so drastically (there will be plenty of bar staff very unhappy about not getting paid at the end of their shift) to comply with such a rigid requirement.

Thanks for any suggestions.

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
20th Mar 2014 12:58

Two possibilities
The 7 day rule.  If you pay employees at the end of their shift at an hourly (or piece work) rate for the work done and it is not reasonably practicable to file on or before the date of payment, which would certainly apply to a Sunday evening, you have 7 days to file the FPS.  See the third item on the list of exceptions.  From April 2014, you would have to enter the late reporting reason (scroll down) as "F".The micro employer exemption.  If an existing employer has 9 or fewer employees, you can do even better and file only once a month on or before the last payday (Sunday) of the tax month.  You might have to cheat a little and say that the last payday is the Monday when you are actually running the payroll.  See the Important Update on the same webpage.  From April 2014, this would be late reporting reason "E".

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By JuliaS73
20th Mar 2014 13:25

Thank you so much - this will make life much easier for me and most importantly for the people trying to run their businesses and retain staff!  It's a pity HMRC don't know anything about it though - I specifically rang them to ask the question about exemptions and he said pubs still have to file on or before.  This news has made my day :-)

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