If you are an employer, important deadlines are looming on a number of topics for the tax year 2017-18.
Thursday 5 July 2018
- Receipt by HMRC of PAYE Settlement Agreement document.
- Receipt by HMRC of P11D’s and declaration for benefits in kind, including Nil Returns.
- Online filing of Employee Related Securities annual return
- Giving forms P11d to your staff including leavers during 2017-18
PAYE Settlement Agreements – What You Need to Know
PAYE Settlement Agreements are an effective way of dealing with tax and NIC when you give certain types of benefits in kind to your staff and this avoids your staff paying tax on the benefit value. It doesn’t cover all types of benefits but it can be a good work incentive because the employer pays the tax and NIC due on the benefit and this doesn’t affect the employee PAYE tax code. It does involve a little more tax and NIC doing it this way but many situations can be suitable. The agreement has to be in place by 5 July and tax and NIC is then payable by 22 October if paying electronically (our preferred and a more secure method). A “PSA” can be for what are termed Minor Benefits (for example subscriptions that are not job related), Irregular Expenses (for example one off gifts that are not minor) and Impracticable Items (such as multiple car “sharing”, but not “Car Benefits”) Please get in touch with us if you would like some help and further advice on a “PSA”.What is an Employer Related Security and How Does it Work?
An Employer Related Security is a rather grandiose description for a share scheme. If your Company issued shares to your staff or made changes to an existing scheme during the tax year, an “ERS” return will probably be due and it has to be made online by 6 July after the tax year end. The good thing is that once the record has been set up properly with HMRC, your tax agent can make this return on your behalf. The return itself uses a type of spreadsheet layout but is relatively complex. In conjunction with this, it may be necessary for your new shareholders to make a tax return to show the new shares. Please call us on 023 8061 4404 if you would like some help with “ERS” or advice about Share Schemes.Are you late with RTI?
Under Real Time Information the payroll team should be telling HMRC when someone is paid either before they get paid or on payday itself, but no later. There are penalties for being late but HMRC have announced they’ll extend the “three day period of grace” up to 5 April 2019. They’ll only do this if the payrolling is not regularly late. Ideally, arrange to tell HMRC about payments before they are made. If the payments do not in fact occur, this can be confirmed to HMRC without penalties being incurred.When penalties are charged
You can get a penalty if:- Your Full Payment Submission (FPS) was late
- You did not send the expected number of FPSs
- You did not send an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) when you did not pay any employees in a tax month
- Your FPS is late but all reported payments on the FPS are within 3 days of your employees’ payday (this applies from 6 March 2015 to 5 April 2019), however employers who persistently file after the payment date but within 3 days may be contacted or considered for a penalty
- You’re a new employer and you sent your first FPS within 30 days of paying an employee
- It’s your 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)