Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
[email protected] 0345 9390019Sep 2015
9
Citizens Advice reported that those who took to twitter to complain spent an average of 47 minutes waiting to speak to someone. The charity said it helped with 295,000 queries in the past 12 months which could have required people to contact HMRC. Official figures from HMRC suggest on average wait time of 10 minutes. Citizens Advice calculated that hanging on the line to HMRC for 47 minutes will, charged at the standard landline rate, cost consumers £4.66 in call charges.
Citizens Advice looked at complaints made to the @HMRCgovuk Twitter account between September last year and August after those seeking help from the charity reported not being able to get through to HMRC to resolve issues.
Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: "People are paying the price for not getting through to HMRC. From fines for not completing a tax return in time to under or overpayments for tax credits, people can be left out of pocket because they cannot speak to HMRC on the phone.
"Work and caring responsibilities means not everyone will be able to wait for three quarters of an hour to ask HMRC a question.
"We have consistently raised this issue with the Government. But evidence from across the Citizens Advice service, and our new research, shows HMRC is still failing to provide a timely service.
"There is already a clear demand to be able to speak to HMRC. With the roll-out of Universal Credit and big changes to tax credits just around the corner this is only going to grow. HMRC needs to urgently address the problems many people are experiencing with phone lines."
Sep 2015
1
Error 1046, one of the most common issues that you may face when processing payroll. The Error 1046 will state: The supplied user credentials failed validation for the requested service.
BrightPay does not check your User/Sender ID and Password as we don’t know what they should be. BrightPay sends this information to the Government Gateway. If you get this Error 1046 it means that the Government Gateway has rejected the submission.
Is the User/Sender ID and Password correct?
Ensure that you can access the HMRC website at http://www.gateway.gov.uk/ using your User ID and Password that you entered in BrightPay. If you are unable to log in you can call the HMRC Online Services Helpdesk on 0300 200 3600.
Is your password greater than 12 digits?
When you are entering your password into the HMRC website, only the first 12 digits will be accepted. However when entering your password into the software it recognises all digits and deems anything after the first 12 as being incorrect causing the Error 1046. If your password is longer than 12 digits, only use the first 12 in BrightPay.
Is your Government Gateway activated?
Once you have registered to use HMRC’s Government Gateway your new Activation Code will be sent via post within 7 days. Once received you can log into HMRC online using your User ID and Password and activate the service. You must do this within 28 days of the date shown on the Activation Code letter.
Double check the information you entered in BrightPay!
Ensure that your PAYE reference number, Accounts office reference and HMRC office name are entered correctly and match the details that HMRC have for you. Check the references don’t have 'Z' instead of '2' or '0' in place of 'O'. Ensure your email address is correct and matches the one you have registered with HMRC.
Aug 2015
18
Hmrc have recently provided employers with information about late/non filing PAYE penalties, inaccurate reports and how to avoid penalties in the future.
Penalties are applied when one or more of the following occur:
- The full payment submission (FPS) was late
- The expected number of FPSs are not sent for any given period
- An EPS (Employer Payment Summary) is not sent when you did not pay any employees in any given pay period
HMRC will not charge a penalty if:
- The FPS is late but all reported payments on the FPS are within 3 days of the employee’s payday
- A new employer sends their first FPS within 30 days of paying an employee
- It is the first failure in the tax year to send a report on time (this does not apply to employers who register with HMRC as an annual scheme or have fewer than 50 employees for the tax year 2014 to 2015)
HOW MUCH WILL BE CHARGED FOR LATE FILING?
Number of employees - Monthly penalty
1 to 9 - £100
10 to 49 - £200
50 to 249 - £300
250 or more - £400
If an employer is over 3 months late they wil charged and additional penalty of 5% of the tax and NI Insurance that they should have reported.
Also be aware that if there is more than one PAYE scheme penalties can be charged on each!
Aug 2015
14
The tool to be provided by the Pensions Regulator for HMRC Basic PAYE Tools (BPT) users will only handle qualifying earnings schemes. It will not do communications nor will it prepare files for the pension companies. It will be an Excel spreadsheet which will need to be populated each pay period so that assessments and calculations can be performed. The results will then need to be input back into BPT. Then the BPT user will need to log in to the pension scheme's web portal and manually input the figures. There will be extra time required in this process and there will be potential for error.
This combined with the fact that HMRC Basic PAYE Tools does not prepare payslips means that the proposition for commercially available fully integrated payroll and auto enrolment software is much stronger.
BrightPay costs £89 (plus VAT) per annum* and will automatically import the file from HMRC Basic PAYE Tools meaning there is no time involved in setting up.
In addition, BrightPay will include the NEST API before January 2016 meaning NEST registered employers will not even need to log in to the NEST portal when submitting the contribution file each pay period.
* Single employer, unlimited employees. BrightPay is free for employers with 3 or less employees.
Aug 2015
7
The Pensions Regulator has published new research which tracks awareness of auto enrolment amongst employers and intermediaries and how they are preparing to act.
The Key Findings from the Intermediaries survey were:
- There was almost universal awareness of auto enrolment amongst all types of intermediaries (between 97% & 98%), with bookkeepers similarly high (94%).
- Payroll administrators reported a significant increase in their ability to answer clients questions, with 54% (up from 33%) believing they are fully able to answer all queries.
- There are increasing proportions of intermediaries planning to act on behalf of their clients, as opposed to taking more passive roles of providing information or technical advice (payroll administrators 71%, IFAs 53%, accountants 44% and bookkeepers 42%)
- The vast majority (96% or more) of accountants, bookkeepers and payroll administrators planned to provide a service to micro employers, while most IFAs did (78%).
The Key Findings from the Employer Survey were:
- Nine in 10 employers staging between August and November 2015 had commenced for automatic enrolment.
- 7 – 10 small employers expected to rely on an adviser to provide practical assistance with automatic enrolment.
- Most (79%) employers staging in 2015 knew their staging date. A lower proportion (29%) of employers staging between January – November 2016 knew their staging date, similar to the (30%) of employers staging between January - April 2017 who knew their staging date.
- Awareness of automatic enrolment increased significantly amongst both small and micro employers.
Aug 2015
6
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has issued a stark warning to hundreds of thousands of small employers, after new research has shown that almost two thirds of SMEs do not know the exact date they need to comply with new workplace pension duties.
Research is published twice a year by the Regulator and tracks awareness of automatic enrolment among employers and intermediaries. Encouragingly, results of the survey show that the majority of employers due to stage between now and November 2015 have started preparing and are aware of their staging date, however awareness amongst those due to stage in 2016 and beyond drops significantly.
Speaking on the subject, Charles Counsell, executive director of automatic enrolment at TPR has said, ‘The challenge of ensuring 1.8 million employers meet their duties by April 2018 is significant and the research shows many employers are still not preparing early enough. We continue to develop new tools on our website to simplify the process for employers and we are using a diverse range of communications to reach out to employers, but my message to employers remains clear: start getting your plans in place or you risk a financial penalty.’
The Pensions Regulator advises that employers should start preparing for automatic enrolment 12 months ahead of their staging date - the date set in law for when their duties will start. Failure to meet auto-enrolment duties could ultimately lead to employers receiving a fixed penalty notice, and the possibility of escalating penalties applied per day for failing to comply with a statutory notice.
Jul 2015
26
The Pensions Regulator has revised its estimate of the number of small and micro employers who will need to stage between now and 2018.
TPR figures show that a total of around 1.8 million small and micro employers will stage over the next three years, compared to the previous estimate of 1.3 million.
TPR said that the reason for the revision of the estimate was that more business start-ups had entered the UK market, and that there were lower numbers of business closures than anticipated.
However it should be noted that a large number of micro employers will be one director companies where the director is also the sole employee. These employers are effectively exempt from auto enrolment and can "opt out" by informing TPR.
Jul 2015
25
The Pensions Regulator has recently published guidance for employers and advisors on pension scheme selection for automatic enrolment.
Changes to the law on workplace pensions and the roll out of auto enrolment mean that every employer in the UK has to automatically enrol certain members of staff into a workplace pension scheme.
Small and micro employers have, since 1st June 2015, come into the auto enrolment net (i.e. staged) and the number of these employers "staging" will increase dramatically from January 2016.
The guidance from TPR is a welcome inclusion for those employers/advisors who may wish to research the various pension schemes available for enrolling their employees.
Many small/micro employers will automatically opt for NEST but it is advisable to be aware of the options available. Some employers may choose NEST for one segment of their employees while opting for a more tailored scheme for other employees.
The TPR guidance is available here.
Jul 2015
14
Fit for Work effectively replaces the old system where an employer could recover
statutory sick pay from HMRC. The new system is far more proactive and the belief
is that it will reduce overall sickness absence.
Fit for Work offers free, expert and impartial work-related health advice to help you
support both staff in work and those who are off sick and also to help you manage
the impact sickness absence can have on your business.
There are two elements to Fit for Work:
• Free, expert and impartial work-related health advice for you, your employees
and GPs via a website (www.fitforwork.org) and telephone line (0800 032 6235)
• Referral to an occupational health professional for employees who have been off
sick, or who are likely to be off sick, for four weeks or more.
The Fit for Work advice service went live at the end of 2014 and from early March
2015, GPs in Sheffield and North Wales began referring eligible patients to a Fit for
Work occupational health assessment. Fit for Work is being expanded across England
and Wales over a period of months with GPs being able to refer nationwide by
autumn 2015.
If you are an employer in an area where GPs can refer, you may start to receive
Return to Work Plans, which offer advice as to how you can work together with
your employees to help them back to work. The Return to Work Plans provide
recommendations and evidence of sickness, replacing the need for a fit note. You
can find out when GPs in your area will be offering the service by visiting
http://support.fitforwork.org/app/get_involved/type/gp.
You’ll be able to refer from autumn 2015, once GP roll-out has been completed.
The intention is that Fit for Work complements, not replaces, existing occupational
health provision. The Government has also introduced tax exemptions of up to £500
on medical treatments recommended by Fit for Work or an employer’s occupational
health service.
Jul 2015
8
Chancellor George Osborne has delivered his emergency budget, setting out the new Conservative government’s plans for the nation’s finances. So here are the key points for payroll.
- A compulsory national living wage for working people aged 25 or over will be introduced in April 2016, set at £7.20 an hour and rising to £9 by 2020.
- The National Insurance Employment Allowance for small firms will be increased by 50% to £3,000 from 2016.
- The tax-free personal allowance will be raised to £11,000 next year. After that, the personal allowance will always rise in line with the National Minimum Wage.
- The higher tax rate threshold will rise to £43,000 next year.
Student maintenance grants will be abolished from 2016, replaced with loans, which people will start to pay back when they earn over £21,000. The maximum value will be increased to £8,200.
Copyright © 2024 Thesaurus Software Ltd T/A Bright Software Group.
3 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA
[email protected] 0345 9390019