Yes all the time, new employees routinely skip the whole section due to the wording (using paper form). If you don't have a student loan (question 9) at all, question 12 make no sense whatsoever, particularly for a 50 year old waitress! As there is no prospect of anyone earning enough to make a repayment and HMRC tell me quickly enough if they do have a loan I can't say I lose much sleep over it!
If you are going the final return route you do need to tick the boxes to say Yes to collecting outstanding tax through PAYE. Otherwise they 'won't even look at it'. This generally works if it is a case of giving a cessation date for self employment. But if not, just hoping someone will read the white box is a bit of a long shot. I ring them up whenever necessary - no problems.
I have recently phoned the Agent Helpline and asked them not to make a repayment at all, which they were happy to do. This was because the client wanted to keep the money on account for his next payment.
I guess having done this you could then go on to the account and request a repayment to a nominated bank account?
I have had two enquiries in the last few weeks along these lines. When the apprentice minimum wage went up to £3.30 in October it meant apprentices would only need to work 34 hours to go over the LEL, not 40+ hours as previously. This makes me think this might be quite a widespread issue, and by April the fines could be substantial if handled wrongly.
I have prepared an FPS as suggested by Euan, but it doesn't show the year to date figures I have entered when setting up the employee. I am using BrightPay. Normally these figures would be from a P45, would therefore have been previously reported to HMRC and would only be of use to calculate tax due. Another scenario is that the year to date figures were wages below the LEL. Does it matter if the YTD figures don't get reported as long as the tax is right? The weekly NI will be right anyway. It seems a little harsh to incur hundreds of pounds of fines by complying with the NMW.
I've had a few of these, usually some or all of the payment has been allocated to another period leaving a shortfall in the period the client has tried to pay.
If the client is behind with payments it can get allocated to the last completed period rather than an older one that they were meaning to pay, but conversely payments can sometimes be allocated to the oldest outstanding period!
For example if P11D's were submitted, an additional liability in the previous tax year can swallow up payments intended for this year.
No the scheme must be set up and registered. Whether anyone joins is another matter. I think originally employees had to be enrolled and contributions taken before they could opt out, but now you can defer them for 3 months while they opt out.
The TPR templates are pretty obtuse although supposedly written in plain (or possibly patronising) English. There's a lot of overviews and advice on assessing the employees, but very little on the actual mechanics of running the thing. Luckily everybody opted out of the scheme I set up, or was non eligible and didn't opt in! One employee expressed interest but hasn't come back to me after I calculated the contributions at 9p per week - she was part time on about £125 a week.
But of course it's important not to be seen to be discouraging staff from joining.
My answers
Yes all the time, new employees routinely skip the whole section due to the wording (using paper form). If you don't have a student loan (question 9) at all, question 12 make no sense whatsoever, particularly for a 50 year old waitress! As there is no prospect of anyone earning enough to make a repayment and HMRC tell me quickly enough if they do have a loan I can't say I lose much sleep over it!
I discovered recently there is an office dedicated to 'VAT reinstatements' 0300 057 4828 - maybe they can help?
Tick the PAYE boxes
If you are going the final return route you do need to tick the boxes to say Yes to collecting outstanding tax through PAYE. Otherwise they 'won't even look at it'. This generally works if it is a case of giving a cessation date for self employment. But if not, just hoping someone will read the white box is a bit of a long shot. I ring them up whenever necessary - no problems.
Helpline
I have recently phoned the Agent Helpline and asked them not to make a repayment at all, which they were happy to do. This was because the client wanted to keep the money on account for his next payment.
I guess having done this you could then go on to the account and request a repayment to a nominated bank account?
Thanks
To both Euan and NYB - the end result would be the same with either method I think (?)
NMW increase = RTI fines?
I have had two enquiries in the last few weeks along these lines. When the apprentice minimum wage went up to £3.30 in October it meant apprentices would only need to work 34 hours to go over the LEL, not 40+ hours as previously. This makes me think this might be quite a widespread issue, and by April the fines could be substantial if handled wrongly.
I have prepared an FPS as suggested by Euan, but it doesn't show the year to date figures I have entered when setting up the employee. I am using BrightPay. Normally these figures would be from a P45, would therefore have been previously reported to HMRC and would only be of use to calculate tax due. Another scenario is that the year to date figures were wages below the LEL. Does it matter if the YTD figures don't get reported as long as the tax is right? The weekly NI will be right anyway. It seems a little harsh to incur hundreds of pounds of fines by complying with the NMW.
Period allocation
I've had a few of these, usually some or all of the payment has been allocated to another period leaving a shortfall in the period the client has tried to pay.
If the client is behind with payments it can get allocated to the last completed period rather than an older one that they were meaning to pay, but conversely payments can sometimes be allocated to the oldest outstanding period!
For example if P11D's were submitted, an additional liability in the previous tax year can swallow up payments intended for this year.
Can they opt out before a scheme is set up?
No the scheme must be set up and registered. Whether anyone joins is another matter. I think originally employees had to be enrolled and contributions taken before they could opt out, but now you can defer them for 3 months while they opt out.
The TPR templates are pretty obtuse although supposedly written in plain (or possibly patronising) English. There's a lot of overviews and advice on assessing the employees, but very little on the actual mechanics of running the thing. Luckily everybody opted out of the scheme I set up, or was non eligible and didn't opt in! One employee expressed interest but hasn't come back to me after I calculated the contributions at 9p per week - she was part time on about £125 a week.
But of course it's important not to be seen to be discouraging staff from joining.