HMRC recently offered a small concession to taxpayers by pushing back the current self assessment deadline by two days. For companies dealing with PAYE, however, there are a whole host of deadlines to meet: while we’ll be working with all our clients to meet these deadlines we thought it might be useful to list them here, giving you the chance to do any necessary preparatory work in good time.

It’s not a deadline as such, but as virtually all employers have to file their returns online, if you haven’t already done so, register for PAYE online. Returns this year need to be in by May 19th so the very latest you should leave this is the beginning of May.

The new tax year begins this year on Friday April 6th, which is Good Friday, and one of your key tasks will be setting up new payroll records for each employee. HMRC is now strongly recommending that you keep electronic payroll records – either using commercial software or downloading the P11 calculator from HMRC’s website. In our view keeping electronic records is sensible, as it will make the job of completing your Employer Annual Return much simpler.

Hand in hand with setting up records for the new tax year is finalising your records for the previous year. You can start doing this after your last payday before the tax year ends on April 5th. Remember that your completed Employer Annual Return must reach HMRC by May 19th. A completed return will contain:

  • Form P14 for each employee that you’ve kept a P11 for through the year
  • And one form P35, summarising the end of year payroll totals for all your employees
  • You may also need to submit a Supplementary Return (P38A) depending on circumstances. If you’re in any doubt about this, please contact us and we’ll outline the relevant criteria

If you’re not completing an Employer Annual Return, then you must notify HMRC of this. Failure to do so could incur a penalty. The guidance from HMRC is that notification should be sent to them as soon as you become aware that you don’t need to submit a return.

You’ll also need to check whether you’re due to make a balancing payment to HMRC, or whether you’re owed a refund. Your Annual Return will show the total amount of PAYE tax and Class1 NICs you should have paid for the tax year. You need to compare this against the payments which you have actually made to HMRC, and if you need to send a balancing payment it needs to reach them by April 19th (for a postal payment) or April 22nd if the payment is electronic. This doesn’t give you a lot of time if your last pay period ends on say, March 31st which is why we always recommend completing your Annual Return as quickly as possible.

You must give a form P60 to each employee who was working for you on April 5th. This form will summarise the employee’s total pay and deductions for the previous tax year. Again, it can be given in either paper or electronic form, although most employees still seem to prefer the paper version! HMRC stipulate that employees need to receive their P60s by May 31st.

You will also need to complete form P11D or P9D for employees who have received expenses or benefits during the year. Form P11D(b) is also required for any NICs due on these expenses or benefits – and all of these forms need to reach HMRC by July 6th.

Finally, you’ll need to pay any Class1A NICs that are due from the above forms, with payments due to reach HMRC by July 19th (or three days later in the case of electronic payments).

As you can see, that’s a comprehensive list of requirements with no less than seven separate deadlines – almost all of which carry the possibility of financial penalties. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Payroll team if you have any questions or need any guidance – as always, we’ll do our very best to help.  Contact us on 01782 710101.