No RTI Reports Made?

Newsletter issue - June 2013.

Employers were told that they had to use real time information (RTI) to report PAYE deductions from the first pay day on or after 6 April 2013. But what if there has been no pay day since 6 April, because no one has been paid? In that case RTI does apply from 6 April 2013 onwards. You need to make an RTI report for every tax month, unless your PAYE scheme has been registered as an annual scheme. Annual PAYE schemes can make just one RTI report for the month in which the salary is paid.

If you are within RTI you can't use the link on the HMRC website to report that no PAYE is due. You have to submit an employer payment summary (EPS) after the end of the tax month (5th) and before the payment date of the 19th.

Even if you pay your PAYE over to HMRC on a quarterly basis, you still have to submit an EPS or a full payment submission (FPS) for every tax month.

If in earlier tax years you had a history of paying PAYE to HMRC for every month or quarter, and you haven't submitted any RTI reports so far, HMRC may well send you an estimated PAYE demand called a specified charge. The only way to get out of paying a specified charge is to submit an EPS or FPS under RTI for the missing periods in 2013/14.