More than one million pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) schemes have started to use real-time information (RTI) reporting, according to the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
The legislation, which came in to effect from 6 April 2013, means that employers report PAYE in real time from their first pay day on, or after, that date each time they pay their employees, rather than yearly.
Ruth Owen, HMRC’s director general personal tax, said: “RTI is bringing PAYE into the 21st century, and it is amazing that we have reached the one million mark in less than a month. This is at the top end of our expectations. However, we’re not complacent and are carefully monitoring submissions, but so far things are going well.
“We have had lots of feedback from many employers saying that RTI is easy to use. We know it will take time before all employers adapt to RTI, but any which haven’t started reporting in real time should do so quickly. All the help they need is on HMRC’s website.”
HMRC has relaxed the regulations for small employers, so that organisations with fewer than 50 employees have until 5 October 2013 to comply with the legislation.
RTI is unfortunately the wrong solution to the problem of bringing PAYE/NI into the 21st century. It is:
– expensive to implement;
– too centralised and therefore prone to catastrophic failure;
– doesn’t remove the burden of bureaucracy away from SMEs and individuals;
– lacks integration of financial institutions …
I could go on … but really a reading of the huge benefits of the alternative system that is much less expensive, decentralized, removes the need for about 95% of current tax forms, doesn’t use tax-codes, helps employers should make you weep … see for example http://taxandbenefit.org Why didn’t you get a choice? Lax government that spends money on the inefficient and probably cuts the efficient! The worst aspect of not going for an IA (income account) system is that there has been a massive failure by government and the financial sector to put into place proper secure ‘data banking’ systems. All of us are exposed to giving our data away to all and sundry on the Internet because the government doesn’t understand what 21st century banking means. Sadly few who read this will have any idea what I’m talking about!