HMRC have recently announced that they will now relax penalty regulations for small employers with 49 or fewer employees in respect of PAYE RTI submissions. This is further to an article   we published in August 2014 concerning the late filing penalties to be introduced from October in respect of PAYE RTI submissions.

This will mean for small employers that the penalty regulations for making a late PAYE RTI submission will be delayed and will not take effect until March 2015.

Small employers should be aware that the Month 12 submission for 2014/15 will need to be made on time to avoid a penalty. There is a general first month concession of a penalty not being charged for a late submission for the first month in each tax year but this will not apply for small employers in March 2015.

This small employer concession should not be confused with the separate concession for micro employers with or nine or fewer employees (PAYE schemes registered before 6 April 2014). As a reminder these employers are allowed to make PAYE RTI submission by the 5 of each month and not on or before any payments made within the month.

For employers with 10 to 49 employees technically you still need to make a PAYE RTI submission on or before the payments within the tax month but with the new concession there will not be a penalty now until March 2015 for late submissions.  

HMRC have issued a help sheet for PAYE late filing penalties which provides further information.

Please contact us if you require any advice