RTI Extension For Micro Employers

HMRC has extended the time micro employers are allowed to report PAYE under RTI.

Organisations with nine or fewer employees will be allowed to report PAYE information on or before the last payday of the month, rather than every payday until April 2016, to help them adapt to real-time information (RTI) reporting.

Ruth Owen, director general for personal tax at HMRC, is quoted by employee benefits:

“The vast majority of employers are now successfully reporting PAYE in real time and are finding it easier to do this than they expected. 

But we appreciate that for some micro employers it has presented challenges for them to meet the deadlines. 

This package strikes a good balance by ensuring RTI improves PAYE processes while minimising the impact on micro employers and their agents by giving them up to two years to adapt.”  

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

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NAO Spat With HMRC

I recently noted that, according to the National Audit Office, neither the Treasury nor HMRC know whether Gift Aid and other tax reliefs on donations have resulted in more income for charities.

The report has produced a wee public spat between HMRC and the NAO, which took place at a PAC hearing on the subject on 2nd December.

The Committee’s chair, Margaret Hodge, told HMRC’s chief executive Lin Homer and director of counter-avoidance David Richardson that the report showed that the link between gift aid and higher donations was “at best unproven; at worst giving to charity has actually fallen”.

This set the scene for the spat between Homer and Robert Prideaux, director at the National Audit Office, over whether the charity sector agrees that donations have risen over the 13 years since gift aid was introduced.

Homer is quoted by CivilSociety:

“We and the sector are very clear that donations have gone up, that gift aid has had a very positive effect on individual donations."

Prideaux disagreed and said that the NAO consulted the sector for its report and found “no clear evidence that donations in the round are increasing”.

“They are in absolute terms, but this might be down to demographics and population changes.

We have not said in the report that donations aren’t increasing, but there is no clear evidence that they are increasing, and the charitable sector will back this up.”

Margaret Hodge was also unconvinced, telling Homer:

“You have yet to prove that this radical change in 2000 was value for money for the £1bn that has gone to corporations and high net worth individuals as a bribe to encourage them to do more.”

Hodge asked the HMRC executives to name the ten charities that benefit most from gift aid, but Richardson said that he didn’t have that information to hand and wouldn’t name names anyway.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Simplicity Awards

On the 3rd of December HMRC presented awards to those who, in the opinion of the judges, have helped make the tax system more simple and transparent.

Members of the judging panel included recent British Accountancy Awards Outstanding Contribution winner Paul Aplin, Tax Aid's Rosina Pullman and Taxation's Mike Truman. HMRC's panel members were Jim Harra, Ruth Owen and Jennie Granger.

The recipients were:

- Public Protection Division of Blackpool Council - for its support of the Blackpool Holiday Industry taskforce launched in July 2013;

- Karen Thomson, Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals and member of HMRC's Administrative Burdens Advisory Board - for helping to ensure that the impact of Real Time Information (RTI) on employers and their payroll processes was minimal;

- Philip Paur, Deloitte - for his contribution to the development and delivery of HMRC's policy and operational delivery on expatriate taxes;

- Brian Palmer, AAT - for his dedication to transparency, including being instrumental in driving HMRC's decision to publish information about post and contact centre performance.

The awards were presented by David Gauke, who is quoted by Accountancyage:

"There is some excellent work going on between HMRC and the tax community. By listening to and working with tax professionals HMRC can make the tax system in the UK as simple and transparent as possible."  

A fair way to go though methinks!


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Voluntary Exit Scheme

As already noted on this site, HMRC is seeking to reduce headcount via a voluntary exit scheme.

Accountingweb reports that the aim is to cut 3,000 fixed-term contract roles in 21 offices. The rational being that more taxpayers are using online services.

Whilst there are no current plans to close the offices, it seems that staff have been told that the sites do not appear to "feature in HMRC's long-term plans".

A cynic might consider that this means that the plans for closing certain sites have yet to be drafted.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Identifying Tax Evasion Using Street View

As has been reported sometime ago HMRC make use of the internet and social networking sites to help identify possible tax evasion.

Shout99 notes that even Google Street View is being used by HMRC to identify lifestyles beyond those which equate to the income reported by suspected tax evaders.

However, Street View is not "real time" and what it shows may be misinterpreted. UHY Hacker Young pointed to an example of a taxpayer being wrongly identified as sending his/her children to a private school, because of a Street View image showing his fence with a poster advertising the school's fete. It transpired that the poster was in fact on the neighbour's fence.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Paperless Self-Assessment Consultation

On 27th November HMRC published a consultation paper on paperless self-assessment.

"HMRC proposes to upgrade its Self Assessment (SA) Online service to provide a complete end-to-end digital experience for customers. This upgrade provides the opportunity for customers already registered to use HMRC’s SA Online service to reduce the amount of paper communications they receive from HMRC and instead receive these electronically.........

.....HMRC proposes that customers registered to use its Self Assessment Online service will be able to provide their consent to HMRC using electronic communications in connection with their tax affairs rather than receiving paper notifications and outputs by post."

HMRC intends to take a staged approach, and if the appropriate legislation is in place will start trials in the early part of the tax year commencing 2014.

The consultation closes on 27th December this year.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"