Ask Us – Letters Page

We welcome contributions for the Employer Bulletin letters page.

Please note this link should only be used for letters for the Employer Bulletin and we will publish letters we feel will be of general interest to a wide audience.

We cannot enter into correspondence on matters relating to individual tax or NI issues. For these queries please visit contact us.

We may shorten or modify letters and there is no automatic right of reply.

Publication of any letter does not imply support for the author’s view.

The October edition of Employer Bulletin promoted a new online tool to create a written statement for employees. Where I work, each employee already has such a statement, so it was frustrating to find that I could not check these existing statements against the issues shown in the new online tool unless I answered the questions on the first and, presumably, each subsequent page. Why is a magazine aimed at helping employers promoting an online tool that is unnecessarily restricted in its appeal to employers who have not already created written statements?

PR Walker

The Business Link tool is indeed aimed at helping employers create written statements for employees who don't already have them. Employers who have already issued written statements, but wish to check that they contain the necessary information, can find it at www.businesslink.gov.uk by entering ' written statement' in the search box, then picking 'put together an employee's written statement' from the results.

Please let me know how we can continue to receive a printed copy of the Employer Bulletin. I know there is a PDF available on the HMRC website but I would still like a printed copy. I have telephoned the Orderline and our tax office but nobody seems to know the answer to this. I hope you can help.

J Langlois

If you have not received your printed copy of the Employer Bulletin then you will need to contact your HMRC office and ask them to check that the “mailing signal” is set against your employer reference number. This should ensure that you receive the various employer mailings that are issued throughout the year.

I undertake the payroll for three different Companies and use the internet as much as possible. I find this to be efficient and convenient. You also notify me by e-mail of any Tax Notices that have been issued. However, your e-mails do not identify which Company the Tax Notice has been issued to. I therefore have to go to each Company in turn until I find the Tax Notice. Is there any way you can incorporate the Company’s reference number in your e-mail notification which will allow me to directly access the notices?

M White

This is one of a number of suggestions we have received from customers telling us how we could improve our Data Provisioning Service (DPS), and we fully appreciate the importance of these to customers like yourself. We are currently working with our IT service provider to decide how best we can address these within our funding constraints and when. We will let you know via our website and future editions of the Bulletin when any firm decisions have been made.