Further update on HMRC Generic Notices
23 December 2013
The CIPP Policy team has been contacted by several members regarding HMRC’s issuing of Generic Notices advising late or non-filing of FPSs, or late payment, when in actual fact the payments had been made on time or the FPS have been correctly submitted on time. Although the team have been in contact with HMRC already about this issue, we contacted them again today as the problem appears to have escalated and is now a considerable burden for some members. HMRC has acknowledged that there are several circumstances which have resulted in the incorrect issue of these notices and have again highlighted the news item which explains what circumstances these are, as well as assuring us that these issues will be resolved before the penalty regime goes live. And again as I said earlier, we are still trying to establish if there are other situations which haven’t yet been brought to light. We will let you know immediately if anything further arises. The CIPP is lobbying hard behind the scenes to push for a deferral on the planned penalty regime until we and the profession are confident that the systems are working. However, HMRC have now recognised the burden these notices have caused for some, and have apologised for the inconvenience. What we are doing, along with other representative bodies, is working with HMRC to highlight and address any further issues to lessen the impact these will have in the future. The aim of the new Generic Notification (GNS) service is to provide helpful messages for customers - alerting them that they may have failed to report or pay PAYE on time. Our intention is to warn employers as early as possible so that they have failed to meet their obligations so that they can review their systems or processes in plenty of time to avoid a potential in-year penalty from April 2014. Unfortunately, there are instances where an employer may receive a GNS warning message even though they have filed correctly. For example, submissions made in advance will not be recognised when calculating the expected number of returns. The system also will not yet take account of situations where employers may be taking advantage of reporting concessions. These are anomalies and will be fixed before the in-year penalty regime goes live. We let stakeholders and customers know about these scenarios in our related "What's New" announcements. With reference to cases that I understand may have caused particular confusion, I attach a link to the Non Filing announcement: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/news101213.htm . We recognise that some employers will not have seen our announcements and so may not realise that they could have received a GNS message, but need not do anything further. We would be very grateful for your support in asking your members to take the trouble to share our announcements with their clients where necessary. I would like to apologise on behalf of HMRC for any inconvenience caused to your members or their clients by the introduction of our GNS service. I also recognise that delayed processing of some data items (such as cessation dates) may have led to the generation of some incorrect messages. However, we hope that these messages will provide a helpful prompt for employers in the future – giving them the chance to avoid unnecessary penalties.” The full text of HMRC’s response is as follows: “Thank you for contacting us and taking the time to explain your concerns.
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 349 of 519
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