HMRC have issued a special notice about electronic PAYE payments. To avoid your payment being late you must make sure your payment has cleared into HMRC’s bank account by the due date.

The due date for electronic payments is the 22nd of each month. However when the 22nd falls on a non banking day (weekend or bank holidays) the payment must have cleared into the HMRC bank account by the last bank working day before the 22nd.

For example: 2011–2012 PAYE month 1 for period ended 5 May 2011.

The due date of 22 May 2011 falls on a Sunday (non banking day), so if you are paying electronically your PAYE payment must clear into HMRC’s bank account by Friday 20 May 2011. If the payment isn’t cleared in time you will be noted as paying late, and late payments for this tax year may result in a penalty being charged.

To add a further consideration, the HMRC bank account do not operate Faster Payment so any electronic payment is likely to take approximately three working days to clear.

Please see our previous article on the introduction of the late PAYE payment penalties for more information.

Also see the HMRC website for more information about late PAYE payment penalties.