From 6 March 2015, HMRC’s late filing penalty regime extends to employers with fewer than 50 employees.  The penalty regime for large employers- those with more than 50 employees, was introduced back in October 2014.

Under Real Time Information (RTI) a Full Payment Submission (FPS) must be submitted to HMRC on or before an employee is paid.  An Employer Payment Summary) (EPS) is made each month to disclose any adjustments to amounts being paid to HMRC including statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay.

Under the penalty regime, any second late filing of the FPS or EPS (one default is permitted in any tax year) will result in an automatic late filing penalty dependant on the number of employees as illustrated in the table below;

 

Number of Employees	Amount of monthly filing penalty
1 to 9	£100
10 to 49	£200
50 to 249	£300
250 to more	£400

 

If a filing is more than three months late HMRC may charge an additional penalty of 5% of the tax and national insurance that should have been reported.

Confusingly, HMRC have announced that all returns may be late by up to three days without incurring a penalty.  This consideration is not expected to be withdrawn any time soon.

HMRC have recognised that micro-employers – those with up to nine employees, require more assistance in dealing with the adaption to RTI and hence, they can continue to file their FPS on or before the last payday in the month until April 2016. After this date, they expected to comply fully with the RTI legislation.

Employers can appeal against RTI penalties subject to a 30 day time limit. HMRC have issued guidelines as to what constitutes a “reasonable excuse” and these include death/bereavement, ill health, IT difficulty and theft/crime.

If you need any assistance with RTI or are interested in Goodman Jones becoming your payroll provider, please contact our payroll team at paye@goodmanjones.com