Employers: Forthcoming changes to HMRC’s Online Return and Forms – PAYE service

HMRC are moving to a new, improved Online Return and Forms - PAYE service in October 2008. We will be moving in-year, Employer Annual Return and expenses and benefits information you have sent us online since April 2005 to the new service. The Online Return and forms – PAYE service is free and enables you to submit your various returns and in year forms online.

When we move the data across to the new service we will take all employer and employee records but we will be deleting any forms that you have entered into the PAYE online service but have not yet submitted to HMRC. At the same time, we will also be deleting all the Employer Annual Returns that you have submitted for tax years 2003-04 and 2004-05 and any other forms and returns that have been submitted before 6 April 2005. These changes do not impact any submission made by Electronic Data Interchange or submissions supported by third party software.

Submitted Data

Submitted end of year information which relates to years before 6 April 2005 will be deleted from your part of the service and you (or where appropriate your agent) will no longer be able to access it. In practice, this means in October 08 we will delete:

  • P38A, P35 and P14s 03/04
  • P38A, P35 and P14s 04/05
  • P11bd and P11 03/04
  • P11bd and P11 04/05
  • P9d forms 03/04
  • P9d forms 04/05
  • All forms, P45(1), P45(3), P46, P46(Car) submitted before 6 April 2005.

This change will bring our storage arrangement in line with the legislation, Reg 97(8) SI 2003/2682, and the advice we offer employers generally about the retention of payroll records. It will not have any effect on the length of time that we keep copies of information you have sent us. We strongly recommend that you review all pre-6 April 2005 data (whether you have submitted it or not) currently on your Online Return and Forms – PAYE record and decide whether you wish to save it on your own IT system or, exceptionally, print it out.

Archiving submitted data

Before we move to the new Online Return and Forms – PAYE service in October 2008, you may wish to store information you have submitted either by printing it out on paper or downloading copies of the data onto your own electronic storage system. Remember to keep any downloaded data securely as it contains data that is confidential to the employee. To download and save data:

  1. Select ‘Employer actions’ from the Left hand navigation menu.
  2. Select ‘View or print any sent forms’.
  3. Select the link ‘Print’ on the right hand side of the form you wish to print or store locally.
  4. Select ‘Print‘ or ‘Save locally’.
  5. Store your output (paper or data files) securely.

Unsubmitted Data

In October20’08 we will also be deleting all unsubmitted data, irrespective of the date you created it.

We are not able to view your unsubmitted data, but we assume it includes the full range of information that is supported by the Online Return and Forms – PAYE service: P45s, P46s and possibly part started Employer Annual Returns (P35s and P14s) - which have been started, never finished and never sent to us. It may be that you thought you had submitted the information but never got around to it or information had been entered before you changed your mind about an online transmission and submitted on paper instead. Either way, the information is currently still in the Online Return and Forms – PAYE service and we are currently storing it for you. Remember, we will be deleting it in October.

What to do if you have any unsubmitted data

We recommend that if you have any unsubmitted forms you either finalise and submit them, or delete them. Unsubmitted forms can be printed using the Print before submission facility. This link is available on the submit page or just before it. Unsubmitted forms can only be printed off on paper, and cannot be downloaded to be stored on your system.

We will delete all unsubmitted forms in October 2008 when we move to the new service.

If you have:

  • P45, P46 and PENNOT data relating to a date of starting or leaving after 5 April 2008: submit it at once before it is deleted. (Starter or leaver information relating to a period before 6 April 2008 will have been repeated on the Employer Annual Return and so does not need to be re-submitted now).
  • P35 or part Employer Annual Return (P35 and/or P14) data relating to any year up to and including 2007-08: get it finalised and submitted at once before it is deleted, if it has not been submitted by any other means.
  • P11d or P9d batch and/or P11 or P9 data relating to 2007-08 or earlier: get it finalised and submitted at once before it is deleted if it has not been submitted by any other means.

If you do not wish to submit or retain unsubmitted data you do not need to do anything. We will delete it in October.

Agents and employer access to data

If you have engaged an agent to submit data on your behalf, and you do not already have a copy of the data that has been submitted to HMRC, the easiest way to archive the data would be for the agent to go into the service and follow the steps above to store or print the data and then send it securely to you.

You should contact your agent to ensure that all necessary records will be stored and provided to you to keep your records up to date.

After October 2008

The Data Protection Act requires that we do not keep data that is not in use. After October 2008, we recommend that you review the new service and delete any employees who have been added to the employee list, have no submitted forms and are not expected to have any. This way you will ensure that only relevant data is held by HMRC on your employees.

If your agent is not authorised you will not have been able to view any data that has been submitted on your behalf. Any data submitted by an unauthorised agent will be deleted, as set out above. If you wish to retain or archive any data submitted by an unauthorised agent you will have to make arrangements directly with them. Description of what we mean by ‘Unauthorised agent’.