PAYE5061 | Background: real time information (RTI): penalties

Penalties

RTI legislation states that an employer is expected to report payroll information on or before the date the individual is paid. If an employer fails to do this, they may be charged a filing penalty. Schedule 55, section 106 provides the legislation for the provision of a penalty for failure to comply with this requirement.

HMRC introduced RTI filing penalties from:

• 6 October 2014 for employers with 50 or more employees

• 6 March 2015 for employers with 49 or fewer employees.

A one-off GNS message was issued to all employers to let them know which segment they fell into in October 2014.

Filing penalties do not apply to an Earlier Year Update (EYU) because there is no statutory filing date for an EYU.

From April 2021 the Earlier Year Update (EYU) will no longer be a valid submission type. Employers should correct their payroll data for the 2020 to 2021 and future tax years by sending a further year to date Full Payment Submission (FPS).

As there is no statutory filing date for a further year to date FPS, penalties will not apply.

Note: There is no change to the penalties for late filing of returns for 2013-14 and earlier years PAYE51000.