HMRC have contacted us to advise that reminders are now being sent to employers who haven’t started sending their PAYE real time submissions. In addition information has also been provided on correctly completing the Annual Amount of Occupational Pension field on the Full Payment Submission (FPS).

In a number of cases where no occupational pension is being paid, employers have entered “0.00” in the Annual Amount of Occupation field on the FPS. Entering “0.00” in this field indicates that an occupational pension is in payment, but the payment is nil. This could have a knock-on effect. Therefore if employers are not paying an occupational pension, they should leave this field blank. Cases affected by this should now be fully corrected.

Feedback has also been received that some PAYE schemes have experienced difficulties in reconciling the difference between the tax HMRC say is due and the tax the employer thinks is due. As a result a dedicated team has been set up to identify the cause of these discrepancies.

The team has been working with a number of PAYE schemes to work through their examples to examine what is causing these discrepancies, and then to resolve them. Each time HMRC identify a root cause, the relevant guidance will be updated, where appropriate.

In addition, HMRC advise that a very small number of borrowers’ employments have been incorrectly ‘ceased’ on their PAYE systems. This has prompted the system to automatically inform the Student Loans Company (SLC) that those individuals have left their employment.

As a result, SLC have issued letters to these borrowers, querying their employment status. Employees affected by this issue are being asked to respond to the SLC saying they have not ceased or changed employer.

HMRC are now in the process of correcting their systems, and are due to complete this soon.

The Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs have also made a Direction requiring specific payroll schemes (EXAM or ELECT scheme employers) to report PAYE information in Real Time from 6 April 2014. From today, HMRC will be writing to those affected employers. A reminder has also been issued that the period for the relaxation of reporting arrangements for small businesses reporting PAYE in real time ends 5 April 2014.

More information on all of the above is available on the HMRC website.