HMRC is writing to employers who operate specific PAYE schemes, setting out how reporting PAYE in real time will affect them from April 2013.

HMRC's Press Release of 28 September 2012 announced that, as part of their awareness campaign for PAYE real time information, they will be writing to all employers to help prepare them for reporting PAYE information in real time.

Whilst some of these schemes will begin reporting PAYE in real time from April 2013, care and support employers, employers with religious objections to electronic communications and users of the special schemes for Examination Fees, Electoral Payments, Direct Payment and Direct Collection schemes will start reporting from April 2014.

The Simplified PAYE Deduction Scheme will therefore remain open until April 2014 for Care and Support employers who currently use the Scheme and who wish to file on paper. This means that the existing annual paper filing arrangements for people who employ care workers and for certain religious groups will be retained for an additional year until April 2014.

Tax Award Scheme, Offshore Protocol and Contractor Only (no employees) schemes, due to their unique nature, are outside the scope for reporting in real time and will not be required to do so at all.

For more information, including details of the schemes themselves and when they will start reporting PAYE in real time, visit HMRC's pages on reporting PAYE in real time for non-standard schemes. Information on RTI is available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rti/newsupdates.htm