PAYROLL

If you employ staff, you have obligations to the Inland Revenue. If you ignore these obligations, penalties and interest will soon be added to your employment costs!

Most penalties arise if you either miss certain statutory deadlines for remitting tax and national insurance you have deducted from your employees or are late submitting returns to the Inland Revenue. Unfortunately ignorance is not bliss - make a late payment or forget to send off a particular return and you will be penalised.

Administering your payroll can be time consuming and burdensome, diverting energy and resources from the core activities of your business. And the task is made all the more difficult by the growing complexity of taxation and employment legislation and the accompanying regime of penalties for non-compliance.

Payroll can be complicated and, above all, has to be done within a short time frame. I can relieve you of the burden of payroll preparation and completion of statutory forms by providing a comprehensive and confidential payroll service, including:

Preparation and Processing of weekly, fortnightly or monthly Payroll
PAYE & NHI Contributions administration
Payments due to Employees and HMRC
Holiday Pay based on either contractual or averaged earnings
SSP (Statutory Sick Pay)
SMP (Statutory Maternity Pay)
SPP (Statutory Paternity Pay)
SAP (Statutory Adoption Pay)
Attachments of Earnings Court Orders
Deductions of Child Support Agency Deductions
Student Loans
Maintenance of Statutory Payroll Records (P11 & P32)
Starters & Leavers: Provision of forms as required (P46, P45)
Students (P38)
Production of Year End Returns (P35, P60/P14)
Period Payroll Reports & Summaries
Payslips
Payment Analysis: Provide you with periodic coin, cheque or BACS analysis

Important updates and changes:

Starting with the 2009-10 tax year, almost all employers must file their Employer Annual Return (P35 and P14s) online. Employers with 50 or more employees must already file these forms online, while under government proposals employers with fewer than 50 employees must file them online from April 2011.

Penalties for failing to file PAYE online

Almost all employers are now required to send their Employer Annual Return (form P35 and forms P14) to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) online.

There are separate deadlines for sending a number of in-year PAYE forms, including P45 and P46, online. Employers with 50 or more employees must already file these forms online, while under government proposals employers with fewer than 50 employees must file them online from April 2011.

If you send any PAYE forms by paper or magnetic media when you're required to send them online, you will face penalties. These penalties will still be due even if you subsequently file an online version of the form(s) for which you've been penalised.

Penalties for failing to file your Employer Annual Return (P35 and P14s) online

The precise amount of the penalty depends on the number of P14s included in your return and is up to a maximum of £3000.

The penalty applies regardless of whether you've filed your return on time or late. And it will still apply even if you try to put things right by filing your return again online.

Penalties for failing to file your in-year forms online:

It is becoming compulsory for most employers to file the in-year forms P45 Part 1, P45 Part 3, P46, P46 (Pen), P46 (Expat) online. If you do not file online when required to do so, HMRC may charge you a penalty. The penalty will range from £100 up to a maximum of £3000 depending on the number of forms that should have been filed online. The first penalties will be issued for the quarter ended 5 April 2010.

The deadline for filing these forms online differs depending on the number of employees in your business:

If you have 50 or more employees, then as of 6 April 2009 you're required to file these in-year forms online.

If you have fewer than 50 employees, then under government proposals, you'll have to file these in-year forms online from 6 April 2011.

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