Last week we had three examples of how ordinary people and businesses are not well served by our incredibly complex tax system. We explained how self-employed women may lose their entitlement to the maternity allowance, and how employers can be fined for not telling HMRC that nothing was paid. We also had a cautionary tale of a business which was set up to help housebound individuals but was hit with a VAT bill.

This is an
extract from our topical tax tips newsletter dated 20 October
2016 (5 days before we publish an extract on this blog). You can obtain future issues by registering here>>>

Intermediaries reporting 
Since 6 April 2015 employment agencies and employment intermediaries have been required to report payments to workers they place with third parties, or find work for, if those workers are not paid under PAYE. We outlined the conditions for this reporting requirement in our newsletter on 9 July 2015. 
Note that personal service companies (PSC) who supply only one worker are not considered to be employment intermediaries for this purpose, so don’t have to report. If the PSC supplies more than one worker it will fall under this reporting requirement, if it also doesn’t operate PAYE on all the workers’ payments. 
The report must include details of: 
  • The agency’s name, address and postcode; 
  • The worker’s name, address, NI number (if held) UTR number; 
  • The worker’s engagement and payment details, including the customers’ details in most cases; and 
  • why PAYE was not applied 
The report must be submitted online using a report template provided by HMRC, which essentially is a spreadsheet in the form of a ODS or CVS file. There may be commercial software available which can do this. 
The report can be submitted for periods to suit the agency, but it must be supplied at least for every quarter in the tax year, within one calendar month of the end of the reporting period. For the quarter to 5 October 2016 the report must arrive with HMRC by 5 November 2016. 
If the agency has not supplied any workers in the period it must submit a nil report by the deadline. Many employment intermediaries are not aware of this requirement. 
HMRC has the power to issue stiff penalties for late reports.
Our employment tax experts can advise on how to appeal these penalties and how to meet the reporting requirements.

This is an
extract from our topical tax tips newsletter dated 20 October
2016 (5 days before we publish an extract on this blog). You can obtain future issues by registering here>>>

The
full newsletter contained the remainder of this item plus links to related source material and the
other two topical, timely and commercial tax tips. We’ve been
publishing this newsletter weekly since 2007; it’s clearly written
and focused on precisely what accountants in general practice need to
know about each week.
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