HMRC have issued guidance on steps employers can take where they are unable to reconcile a charge shown on HMRC records to theirs. The guidance contains advice for employers to eliminate some of the most common errors and resolve the issue without having to contact HMRC.

• Business Tax Dashboard - ensure that enough time has been left for HMRC’s Business Tax Dashboard to be updated – this may not reflect some real time submissions or payments.
• Employer Payment Summary (EPS) and Full Payment Submission (FPS) – check that all FPS and EPS submissions have been made for the month. If an employer hasn’t sent anything, HMRC may have created a specified charge, which is an estimate of what they believe is due based on previous filing or payment history.
• Correcting payroll errors - current year - check the date any amendments have been sent. Any sent more than 14 days after the end of the tax month they relate to will be taken into account in the charge for the next tax month.
• Confirm any EPS was submitted in time to be used in the month intended. The timing of the submission of an EPS, with the amounts an employer wishes to recover, determines which payment HMRC will adjust in that tax year.
• Check the payments to HMRC match the amounts reported in the FPS and EPS submissions.

HMRC has also corrected an issue which had resulted in some employment records being incorrectly merged on its systems. The issue affected some employers who employ an individual to do more than one job within the same PAYE scheme. In some instances, the issue resulted in these separate employments being merged in error. This has now been fixed.

In addition, HMRC advises that it is now emailing employers who haven’t started reporting PAYE in real time, to warn about penalties at the end of 2013–14. Guidance to help employers avoid creating duplicate employments, and to reflect the staggered introduction of in-year penalties has also been published. Letters entitled ‘Paying PAYE electronically’ were also issued to employers who were due to make their one off annual 2013–14 PAYE payment for month 12 (6 March 2013 to 5 April 2014) by 19/22 April 2014. HMRC also produced 2 helpsheets on getting ready for April 2014 and the tax year ahead.