HMRC have issued a reminder that this month’s PAYE payment is due on April 22 which is a Sunday.
Faster payments have made this less of a problem than it used to be, but the banks have their own rules relating to how the scheme operates.(HSBC has a £10K daily limit).
As HMRC say
you should contact your bank or building society before making each payment and they will confirm whether the service is available for that payment and explain how it works.
Speculation about the contents of tomorrow’s Budget has been rife but I’m not sure that there will be much in it for small businesses – there has been too much talk about big business and tax evasion.
If you do own a small business and you’re going to listen to the Budget, I suggest you take any announcement of measures designed to “help” business with a large pinch of salt.
If the Chancellor talks about reducing corporation tax make sure he is referring to the small profits rate of 20% (the rate most small businesses pay) rather than the rate which most big businesses pay (26%). It’s interesting that the small profits rate has remained at 20% during a period when the ‘big business’ rate has fallen from 28% to 26% and in just over a year’s time will fall another 2% to 24%.
Abuse of service companies by ‘top earners’ such as Ken Livingstone and the head of the Student Loans Company may well allow Osborne to introduce measures to charge National Insurance on dividends. Be very careful if he starts to talk of abuse and service companies. It could be very costly for SMEs.
HMRC have published details of what to do if your employer goes into liquidation when you’re having deductions made from your pay to repay your student loan.
Their advice, however, seems somewhat back to front. Contacting the liquidator if you have no proof of deductions made isn’t the answer. Liquidators may not be able to extract the necessary information , or worse still, may not even be bothered about your problem.
The answer is look after your paperwork (payslips, P60s) just in case you need them.
Yet another copy of VAT Notes has been released by HMRC.
I have said previously that it isn’t the most exciting read you’ll come across but HMRC do expect you to read it (even though they don’t send you a copy any more!)
The full notes are here.
Last week I was given an e-mail address for an HMRC office, which is very unusual because HMRC only use e-mail internally. I was given it was because I had spent three months phoning the office but the line was always engaged!
Experience told me to check their response time before using it. HMRC told me
All correspondence, including e-mails, is dealt with strictly in accordance with the date on which it is received, so is basically given the same priority as post. the disclaimer below, which is issued in response to all e-mails received, reinforces this fact.
The disclaimer is wonderful (little wonder it’s small!)
E-mails are treated in the same manner and the same level of importance as other communications i.e. post, telephone or fax. So, please do not be disappointed if you do not receive an immediate reply.
As postal response times can be up to 12 weeks I’m not certain I’m any better off with an e-mail address.
HMRC have sent an “Email Alert” to all employers who have registered for the HMRC employer email alert service. The details are shown below but if you’re an employer and you haven’t received this e-mail I would advise you to register as quickly as possible because this is the only way HMRC will communicate with you in future.
Welcome to the Employer Email Alert Service
HMRC have just published important information on their website which includes:
- the latest edition of the Employer Bulletin, issue 40, which identifies 3 essential articles
- the latest version of Basic PAYE Tools for 2012
- how to finish your payroll for 2011-12
- start your payroll for 2012-13 by using our form P9X (2012) Tax codes to use from 6 April 2012, at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/p9x.pdf and
- Real Time Information
To find out more go to http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/forms-publications/employer-pack.htm
HMRC has announced that a smartphone, supplied by your employer, will now be treated as a mobile phone and need not be included on your P11D as a benefit in kind.
Having said that I think most people have always treated their smartphone as a mobile phone anyway! Even HMRC seem to agree when they say:
In most instances an employer-provided smartphone will not have been reported to HMRC as a taxable benefit.
There are two important points relating to this statement though:-
- If you did treat your smartphone as a taxable benefit you may be entitled to a tax repayment (see final section of statement); and;
- It does not cover tablet computers.
HMRC have released the latest version of Basic PAYE Tools, a software package to help you run your payroll throughout the year.
The tool allows you to work out the tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) for your employees in each pay period and, if you have up to and including nine employees at 5 April, you will be able to file your Employer Annual Return (forms P35 and P14) online. You can also use it to file your starter and leaver forms (P45 and P46) online.
Unfortunately HMRC’s build-up to the answer to my question wasn’t worth waiting 16 weeks for! In a nutshell, they said
Although I can confirm that the information is held by HMRC, I am not prepared to release it to you because it is exempt information under the FOIA. The cost to HMRC of using Moira Stuart to publicise SA deadlines is information related to an identifiable individual and constitutes personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998. Such information is exempt from disclosure.
The full reply is here.
