National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS) - improving HMRC’s service to its customers
New system for PAYE
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is committed to delivering an improved service to its Pay As You Earn (PAYE) customers who rely on the department to ensure that they’re paying the right amount of tax and National Insurance, at the right time.
A new system for processing PAYE, the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS), which has one single record for each individual customer containing all their PAYE details, is helping make this happen. As a result, in the majority of cases, a customer’s question can be answered at the first point of contact with HMRC. This means that most customers will only have to make one phone call to HMRC to have all of their tax and National Insurance issues resolved, saving them time and expense.
The new system is being introduced in three phases. The first upgrade was successfully delivered on schedule in June 2009. This was the biggest change to PAYE processing in 25 years.
Further improvements introduced on 23 November 2009
The second phase of the new system was introduced on 23 November 2009. This included enhancements to coding processes and will allow HMRC to complete the annual tax coding run in January 2010 using NPS for the first time. It also enables the new system to flag up automatically, any PAYE cases that have missing information, so that HMRC can look into putting these right.
More changes in April 2010
This final planned upgrade will complete the transformation of PAYE processing and will enable NPS to record the reasons for an over or under payment and, in most cases, automatically deal with the calculation. Another major new function will automatically clear customers’ records when one or more incomplete previous years are finalised.
Really making a difference
The programme that is driving this change (Modernising PAYE Processes for Customers Programme) recently won the Civil Service ‘Public Value Award’. This award, sponsored by Accenture, is for the outstanding contribution to providing value for money.
Sir Gus O’Donnell, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Home Civil Service, said: ‘The awards are our way of acknowledging success and saying thank you to all those people who have really made a difference.’
NPS is working well. HMRC is, however, aware of some specific issues that might affect tax agents and advisers following its introduction. They want to let you know what action they’re taking, or what you need to do to put things right.
