Thu, 30 Jul 2009

HMRC’s PAYE Service goes live

The practical upshot of the HM Revenue & Custom’s major new upgrades to its PAYE service as of July will be that individuals can call one tax office and their details will be available altogether. The move is good news, particularly for contract workers or those who don’t have straightforward tax arrangements. One company executive commented wryly, ‘It will be good news for most but some liked the confusion of multiple tax centres for details; it helped avoid tax.’

The following is an edited letter which HMRC sent to its users about the upgrades to its PAYE service. ‘We wrote to you on 8 June to tell you about the significant improvements we are making to our PAYE Service in July 2009 as part of ongoing improvements to customer service and our internal processes.

‘We have now completed the major upgrades to our IT systems that are central to our plans. Our people who handle customer telephone queries have access to the new system and are developing their skills and expertise.

‘Employers should continue to submit their data as normal. Please note that we will now process all PAYE data submitted online and stored during the period of service interruption and will resume the normal issue of notices of revised tax coding to employers and employees as we make the PAYE Service available to our staff.’