PAYE records to move to one system HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is moving all its PAYE records currently held on 12 separate geographical databases onto one computer system (the pre-existing National Insurance Recording System database) in 2008. HMRC staff will then have access to all of an employee’s pay, tax, National Insurance, benefits and pension information in one place. Employee enquiries should therefore be dealt with more quickly and completely. The current standards of service that tax payers can expect from HMRC are set out at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/servicestandards/standards.htm. The PAYE rules are not changing, nor is the data held and employers and employees will not have to do anything different when contacting HMRC. However, bringing all employee details together on one system should reduce the number of times HMRC has to contact employers or employees – or other HMRC offices – for more information, for example, duplicate Form P45 figures or employee address details. This should assist employers, with employees being less likely to ask them for information. Changes already made to HMRC processes mean that information provided by employers on returns P11D and P46 (Car) should be processed quicker, enabling current year employee tax codes to be updated immediately, in advance of settling the previous year’s liability. Pay and tax figures from individual Forms P14 are now automatically combined into a single total, irrespective of the number of employments that the taxpayer had during a tax year. The original National Insurance Recording System encountered some initial teething problems, so this change in HMRC internal processes will be tested to ensure that it can fully support employers prior to going ‘live’. The increased automation paves the way to introduce mandatory PAYE in-year online filing of starter and leaver information in: April 2009 for employers with 50 or more employees April 2011 for small employers with fewer than 50 employees Paul Tew, Pay Magazine Snowdrop provides a range of Payroll solutions that are fast, flexible and easy-to-use, to suit the many and varied needs of each organisation. To find out more about the software and services that we provide, please click here >>