Admin

The penalties regime of the real-time information (RTI) reporting of PAYE will not begin October, HMRC have announced, signalling a six-month postponement.

Automatic fines for late filing and overdue payments were due to begin on 6 April, but the Revenue has introduced a delay after finding it needed time to improve RTI systems and guidance.

The new timetable will be:

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The economic outlook is improving, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but problems lay ahead

Tax planning for loving couples

No understatement: H and I Newell (t/a Tanya’s Takeaway) (TC3120)

HMRC tackled record levels of online fraud in the run-up to last month’s self assessment deadline, the department has revealed.

Taxpayers reported 23,247 incidents of phishing o the Revenue during the three months to 31 January: an increase of 47% on the same period a year earlier. As a result, the department closed 178 web sources of bogus emails offering tax refunds during January 2014, marking year-on-year growth of 274% 

The taxman was alerted to more than 91,000 incidents of phishing during the whole of 2013 and put a stop to 1,476 sites.

S Varma (TC3147)

R J Herbert Engineering Ltd (TC3132)

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Automated penalties cannot be said to be determined by an HMRC officer

HMRC have warned of another problem with their business tax dashboard, following the recent month eight error.

The latest error means the dashboard is not showing the correct liability position for tax months nine and ten of some PAYE schemes. Employers may find they are being told they owe more tax than expected for the affected months.

Record filings

A record 10.74m tax returns were filed for 2012/13 by 31 January, the highest proportion (93.4%) of on-time submissions recorded. Around 8.48m were filed online, passing last year's figure by 0.55m. The busiest day for online returns was 31 January, when HMRC received 569,847. The busiest hour occurred between 4pm and 5pm on the same day: 45,706 returns were received at more than 12 a second, while 21,027 taxpayers filed their return between 11pm and midnight on deadline day.