RTI filing comprises various different electronic submissions at different times:

  • A Full Payment Submission (FPS) is made on or before an employee is paid. This provides details of the employee, their pay and deductions. Employers and pension providers must submit an FPS ‘ on or before’ they make a payment to an employee or pensioner. If they still have information to send after 5 April, they can send this on an FPS until 19 April, then on an Earlier Year Update (EYU) after that. New employers are allowed up to 30 days to file their first FPS.
  • An Employer Payment Summary (EPS) is made each month, this shows any adjustments to what is paid to HMRC for SMP, SSP etc.
  • Nothing to report returns, the EPS is also used to notify HMRC if no payments have been made in the month, when no payment is made, employers should submit the EPS by the 19th following the end of the tax month
  • An Earlier Year Update (EYU) this is made following the end of the tax year in order to correct errors or make adjustments to information submitted in earlier years
  • Employee forms P60 and P11D employers must still provide employees with a P60 end of year summary by 31 May following the tax year and a P11D by 6 July following the tax year.

When are Penalties charged?

You can get a penalty if:

  • your Full Payment Submission (FPS) was late
  • you didn’t send the expected number of FPSs
  • you didn’t send an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) when you didn’t pay any employees in a tax month

HMRC won’t charge a penalty if:

  • your FPS is late but all reported payments on the FPS are within 3 days of your employees’ payday (this applies from 6 March 2015 to 5 April 2017) however employers who persistently file after the payment date but within 3 days may be contacted or considered for a penalty
  • you’re a new employer and you sent your first FPS within 30 days of paying an employee
  • it’s your first failure in the tax year to send a report on time (this doesn’t apply to employers who register with HMRC as an annual scheme)

How much you’re charged depends on how many employees you have.

No. of employees Monthly penalty
1 – 9
10 – 49
50 – 249
250+		 £100
£200
£300
£400

 

If you’re over 3 months late you can be charged an additional penalty of 5% of the tax and National Insurance that you should have reported.

Late payment penalties

Penalties apply to employer payments of PAYE and NI whether paid monthly or quarterly. Since April 2015 HMRC has applied automatic in-year penalties, subject to a tolerance of £100, difference between employer’s payment and what has been reported to HMRC.

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