I only discovered this issue today when I went to run all my P32 summaries for month 12 of 13/14 year and discovered the SSP reclaimed entry was missing. I phoned Sage who told me how to print them correctly for the last tax year, but advised me that as of 2014/15 it was no longer reclaimable and had been replaced by the Employers Allowance instead. That's all very well, but as a lot of folk here are saying, it's mostly the smaller companies who are able to reclaim the SSP - those who hardly pay any employers NIC in the first place. In fact, I have one client who employs 2 carers, one of which is off on long term sick just now having had a double knee replacement. That client will not be able to claim the Employers Allowance as you can't claim it for employing carers, but they will still have to fork out the full amount of SSP for the next 20 or so weeks. It's getting beyond a joke.
You would only get one for any client that has been registered for PAYE but has never submitted anything via RTI - so you would not expect to receive one for every client. As far as i can tell from the email, which yes is genuine according to the phishing department, is that they are chasing up companies who have a paye ref but have never submitted anything via RTI, so possibly companies that have ceased just prior to April 2013. I know HMRC are terrible for not closing down companies when cessation P35s were sent in followed up by letters asking them to close down companies so perhaps it's something like that.
Surely HMRC would send notifications via the online notice system where tax codes etc are posted. That's usually where reminders are received. We've received at least 3 of these today so far, to 2 different email addresses within the office, one of which has nothing to do with payroll. I also note it says in the email that they are supposed to have contacted us in June 2013 and September 2013 regarding this - I don't recall any letters coming in for any of my clients and certainly no emails like this. If anyone does call HMRC and find out can they post here so we know for sure? I've forwarded one of mine to the spoof email for HMRC and waiting for them to get back.
My answers
give with one hand and take with the other
I only discovered this issue today when I went to run all my P32 summaries for month 12 of 13/14 year and discovered the SSP reclaimed entry was missing. I phoned Sage who told me how to print them correctly for the last tax year, but advised me that as of 2014/15 it was no longer reclaimable and had been replaced by the Employers Allowance instead. That's all very well, but as a lot of folk here are saying, it's mostly the smaller companies who are able to reclaim the SSP - those who hardly pay any employers NIC in the first place. In fact, I have one client who employs 2 carers, one of which is off on long term sick just now having had a double knee replacement. That client will not be able to claim the Employers Allowance as you can't claim it for employing carers, but they will still have to fork out the full amount of SSP for the next 20 or so weeks. It's getting beyond a joke.
why you would not receive one for every client
You would only get one for any client that has been registered for PAYE but has never submitted anything via RTI - so you would not expect to receive one for every client. As far as i can tell from the email, which yes is genuine according to the phishing department, is that they are chasing up companies who have a paye ref but have never submitted anything via RTI, so possibly companies that have ceased just prior to April 2013. I know HMRC are terrible for not closing down companies when cessation P35s were sent in followed up by letters asking them to close down companies so perhaps it's something like that.
don't think it's real
Surely HMRC would send notifications via the online notice system where tax codes etc are posted. That's usually where reminders are received. We've received at least 3 of these today so far, to 2 different email addresses within the office, one of which has nothing to do with payroll. I also note it says in the email that they are supposed to have contacted us in June 2013 and September 2013 regarding this - I don't recall any letters coming in for any of my clients and certainly no emails like this. If anyone does call HMRC and find out can they post here so we know for sure? I've forwarded one of mine to the spoof email for HMRC and waiting for them to get back.