PAYE30015 - employer records: movement of an employer record: movement of employer record - general

This subject is presented as follows

Skeleton employer record

Responsible Organisation Unit

Request to move an employer record - stencil

Rejection of Employer and Taxpayer Records stencil

Movement of an employer record in year of set up

Employer references

Expected dates

Using Function Maintain Skeleton Employer

Office reorganisations

Responsibility for employer record

Skeleton employer record

You must use Function MAINTAIN SKELETON EMPLOYER to create a skeleton employer record to facilitate the transfer of responsibility of an employer record from one Organisation Unit or office to another.

Function MAINTAIN SKELETON EMPLOYER allows you to

• Initiate the transfer of responsibility for the record
• Initiate a part scheme transfer
• Facilitate mergers or successions
• Cancel mergers or successions carried out in error (reverse merger or reverse succession)
• Amend or delete a skeleton employer record

Responsible Organisation Unit

It is important that the correct responsible Organisation Unit is used for both the office transferring the records and the office receiving the records. Without the correct details the move cannot take place.

Each office has one MU in their office that they have nominated for use to facilitate any employer record moves.

If you do not know your office’s nominated MU or the MU of the other office involved in the move you must ask your manager.

If you receive a request from an employer or contractor to move, co-locate or amalgamate a group of employer records, that are not necessarily your responsibility, you should ask them to contact

• The Senior Location Manager for the office currently responsible for the employer record

Or

• Where more than one record or office is involved, the Senior Location Manager of the appropriate office. This may be for example

Or

If you request the movement of an employer record which due to the way the new office is organised will require, the employer record being placed in one particular MU, and the taxpayer records for that employer reference being placed in a different MU, you must

• Transfer the taxpayer records and the employer record to the MU that is responsible for the taxpayer records

Then

• Transfer the employer record to the corresponding MU

For further guidance see Action Guide 'Scheme Transfer-In' PAYE30020.

Request to move an employer record - stencil

In all cases where the movement of responsibility for an employer record is necessary you will need to inform the Processing Centre of the action you wish them to take and also advise them of the type of bulk transfer list(s) you require.

(This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)ensure the Processing Centre receive the information they need to enable the movement of responsibility for the employer record to take place.

Send the stencil to the address shown on the stencil.

As a result of making your request you will in the first instance receive the Bulk Transfer lists you have requested. For example, ‘Bulk Transfer – Employer Record Merger’.

The Processing Centre, as a batch process, will then initiate the movement of responsibility for the employer record shortly after, with taxpayer records being moved at the same time where relevant.

Rejection of Employer and Taxpayer Records stencil

The Processing Centre will return the completed Employer & Taxpayer Records stencil to you with an explanation if they are unable to initiate your request to move an employer record.

Follow PAYE30018 if the Processing Centre return a stencil to you.

Movement of an employer record in year of set up

Where a move has taken place in the same year the record was set up no last year will have actually existed. Cases where this situation has arisen were recorded on COP by showing ‘NN’ as the last year. For example 1998/9 was shown as 99. The last year will be indicated on the EBS employer record as ‘9999’.

Employer references

The reference given to a skeleton employer record may be

• The existing reference of the employer record you are to merge into
• The existing succeeding employer reference
• The reference where the record was incorrectly merged or succeeded from

Or

• Manually generated or allocated (where you want to receive an employer record transferred from another office)

You must ensure that any manually allocated references adhere to the following format

• Acceptable characters A-Z and 0-9

And must not

• Exceed 7 characters
• Include leading zeros
• Include the letter Z as the second character

Expected dates

The expected date is the estimated date the responsibility for the employer record will be moved by the Processing Centre to another office. It must be entered for all cases where you use Function MAINTAIN SKELETON EMPLOYER to create a skeleton employer record.

The expected date entered should be

• Three months on from the date you have created the skeleton record

Or

• 31 March (whichever is the sooner)

Note: The Processing Directors’ Office will advise you of the procedures you need to take and the expected dates you will need to use for office reorganisations.

An embargo is created from the expected date. This prevents movement of individual taxpayer records linking to that employer record during the movement of the employer record. It is essential that you enter this date as failure to do so may mean that individual records are lost if they are transferred to an old office after the movement of the employer record has taken place.

You should bear in mind that the physical movement of an employer record takes place shortly after the transfer list has been received.

Using Function Maintain Skeleton Employer

It is important that you do not use this function where you believe the movement of responsibility for the employer record will not be fully completed by 5 April.

This is because the movement of an employer record must not straddle tax years . You must normally allow a minimum of 6 weeks for the process to be completed. If the process cannot be completed by 5 April you must BF your papers until 6 April to proceed at that time.

Office reorganisations

The Processing Directors’ Office (PDO) will provide guidance where your office is involved in an office reorganisation involving the bulk movement of employer records.

You should note that you will need to create a skeleton employer record for each employer involved if you are the receiving office.

PDO will also advise you of the ‘expected date’ that you will need to enter on the skeleton employer records. This will initiate the embargo on the movement of individual taxpayer records to that employer during the reorganisation.

Responsibility for employer record

The responsibility for an employer record for years where that record moves between offices will depend on

• The type of move
• Whether the move results in a change in Banking Operations office

If an employer record moves from one employer reference to another as a result of one of the following, responsibility for that record is also moved to the new reference from the year the move takes place. The old office remains responsible for all previous years

• Transfer across Banking Operations office boundaries
• Merger

Or

• Succession

Otherwise, if the move is not as a result of a merger or succession and the transfer is within the same Banking Operations office boundary responsibility for all years from the scheme start date moves to the new office.