Employees

A radical new approach to address high-profile tax avoidance

Employers using products from one particular software provider have received penalty warning notices from HMRC because they sent their end-of-year information on the wrong type of submission.

The problem affects businesses that:

Reporting relaxation extended to April 2014

Reviewing the First-tier Tribunal decision in Apollo Fuels, which concerned company car leasing arrangements

Knowledgepoint 360 Group Ltd v CRC, Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber)

HMRC have announced new fuel rates for company cars. They will apply to all journeys on or after 1 June 2013 until further notice.

Employers may use either the previous or new rates for one month from the date of change and, therefore, make or require supplementary payments. They are under no obligation to do either. Petrol hybrid cars are treated as petrol vehicles for this purpose. The amounts can be used for VAT, but employers must retain receipts.

There are dangers in ITEPA 2003, s 222 if the strict time limit is ignored

Limited tax relief will be available from June for workers whose employer pays or reimburses the charge for subscribing to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) update service, and for criminal records certificates.

The government expects the measure to affect up to 11.4m employees in the first five years of the DBS update service, which is to replace the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority.

Incorrect real-time information tax codes are being issued for businesses that have submitted employer alignment submissions (EAS) or full payment submissions (FPS) that are incomplete or partial.

Examples include where an employer:

Business expenses will be incurred by one-man limited companies and these will need to be shown on a form P11D and a deduction claimed

HMRC have issued clarification of the requirements of operating annual PAYE schemes in the real-time information (RTI) system.

The Revenue is unable currently to process requests from employers hoping to move to paying annually and register as an annual scheme, or to change their payment frequency. The publish a message on its website when the issue has been fixed.

For a PAYE scheme to be considered annual, it must meet the following requirements.

O’Flaherty v CRC, Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber)