Apr 2014
23
RTI - Penalty charges for late returns and how they will apply
They will now start from 6 October 2014. To avoid late filing penalties, you must make sure all submissions due are fully up to date by 5 October 2014.
In addition to where submissions do not appear to have been filed by the due date, a late filing penalty for a month may be issued where one of the following applies:
• payment information is not received as expected on an FPS
• you haven't told HMRC that no employees have been paid by sending an EPS
However, no penalty will arise for the first month in each tax year where there is a filing default. This means there are a maximum number of 11 fixed penalties per tax year that can be charged for filing failures.
New employers will not be issued with a penalty if their first FPS is received within 30 days of making their first payment to an employee. But after that, normal penalties rules will apply if an FPS is filed late.
The size of the late filing penalties depends on the number of employees within the PAYE scheme.
| Number of employees | Amount of the monthly filing penalty per PAYE scheme |
| 1 to 9 | £100 |
| 10 to 49 | £200 |
| 50 to 249 | £300 |
| 250 or more | £400 |
HMRC will use the latest information available to determine the number of employees, and the size of the filing penalty for each period where a return is late. <
When the penalty notice will be issued
Ordinarily, HMRC will send employers a filing penalty notice quarterly in July, October, January and April, where appropriate. These penalty notices show the amount of the filing penalty for each tax month identified in that quarter. For example, a penalty notice in July will show any filing penalties arising in the first quarter of the tax year - that is, month 1 (6 Apr to 5 May), month 2 (6 May to 5 June) and month 3 (6 June to 5 July).
The penalty notice will advise you of the amount you're being penalised, tell you how you can pay it and what to do if you don't agree a penalty is due.
Additional penalties for returns over three months late
Where a return is late for three months or more and the information that it would have contained has not been provided on a later return, a further penalty may be charged. This additional penalty is set at 5% of the tax/NICs that should have been shown on the late return. This will be used for the most serious and persistent failures.
