Online filing 2008

Your 2007-08 Employer Annual Return (P14s and P35) is due 19 May, but you can send it as soon as it is ready. This page tells you what to do before you send your Return and what happens after we get it.

Getting started

Sending your Return

Tax-free payments, penalties, contractors and help

Who must send an Employer Annual Return?

You must only send a 2007-08 Employer Annual Return if you had to fill in at least one Deductions Working Sheet (P11 or equivalent) during the year. By law, you only need to complete a Deductions Working Sheet where:

  • your employee has given you a P45(3) with a date of leaving in the current tax year
  • you pay someone at or above the Lower Earnings Limit
  • you deduct tax on earnings
  • we send you a code number for an employee or director and you operate it against their pay

Do not send a Return if you did not have to fill in at least one Deductions Working Sheet. Instead, contact your HMRC office (by phone or in writing) as soon as you can and tell us that you are not sending a Return. This will stop us sending you a penalty.

You may have to send us a P35 where you have nothing to report in the 'accounting' boxes, but you still have to send us P14s. For example, where all your employees are paid at or above the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance but below the National Insurance Earnings Threshold.
If you are a limited company and you need to report an amount in the ‘CIS deductions suffered’ box you must send a P35, even if all the other accounting boxes on the form are ‘nil’.

Who must file online?

We wrote to everyone in November 2006 and told them if they had to file online for 2007-08. You must file online if we told you that you had 50 or more employees. Otherwise you will get a penalty.

If you had fewer than 50 employees when we wrote to you, you do not have to file online for 2007-08. But you could get £100 tax-free if you do.

If you are not sure, contact your HMRC office.

Keeping a record

If you use an agent to send any part of your Return for you, you must keep a record of your confirmation that what has been sent is correct. It does not need to be on a form P35, but can, for example, be an online confirmation. If you want to use a P35 to keep a record of what you have agreed, a blank P35 is available. While the form is marked 'For information only', it will be okay to use as a record so that you have an audit trail. But please do not send the paper P35 to us.

Register now!

You must register for and activate PAYE Online for Employers – Internet service (if you have not already done so) before you can send any part of your Return online over the Internet, whether you use our Online Returns and Forms – PAYE service or your own software. And you need to do it in plenty of time to get your Return to us by the 19 May deadline. You cannot file your Return online using the Internet until you register and activate the service.

Replacement passwords

If you have already registered for PAYE Online but need a replacement User ID or password, self-serve what you need at Online Services and select 'Lost User ID' or 'Lost password'. If you have lost both your User ID and password you should contact the Online Service Helpdesk as soon as possible.

If you have registered but not received your Activation PIN, you can log on with your User ID and password at Government Gateway. On your Services List, select 'Activate' under 'Action' and click on ‘Request a New PIN’. You only need your Activation PIN when you first register; you do not have to activate every year.

It can take up to ten days for replacement details to come through, so make sure you leave enough time to get your ID and password and send your Return by 19 May. All replacement details are sent through the post to the Company Secretary at you business address.

Get it right

Using temporary National Insurance numbers, incorrect PAYE references or the wrong National Insurance category are some of the common mistakes made last year. Read our guidance about the most common errors before you send your Return.

Test for success!

Some software lets you to test all or part of your Return as soon as you want. A successful test Return will get the following messages by email and in the software used to send the Return:

Email: The submission for reference <Employer’s PAYE Reference> was successfully received on <date>. If this was a test transmission, remember you still need to send your actual Employer Annual Return using the live transmission in order for it to be processed.’

Software:

  • ‘9004: the EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation’
  • ‘9001: this submission would have been successfully processed if sent under non test conditions’

If your test Return does not meet the Quality Standard, we will send a message explaining why it has failed.

If you send a test, you must remember to send us your ‘real’ Return as well. If you are not sure, ask your software provider if and how you can send a test and where you will see acceptance or rejection messages.

Sending your Return

You can send your Return as soon as it is ready. Returns where the P14s and the P35 are all sent together will be checked against our Quality Standard straight away and we will send an acceptance or rejection message to the sender as soon as possible, usually within a minute (but the response to larger submissions will take longer).

A successful submission will get the following messages by email and in the software used to send the Return:

Email: The submission for reference <Employer’s PAYE Reference> was successfully received on ,<date>. If this was a test transmission, remember you still need to send your actual Employer Annual Return using the live transmission in order for it to be processed.’

Software: ‘9004: the EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation’

An unsuccessful submission will get an email as follows:

The submission for reference <Employer’s PAYE Reference> was received on <date>. Unfortunately it could not be accepted as it failed data checks. To correct this please use the help provided within the software you used to complete your form and send it again’.

We will also send an online message showing what the error was. If we reject your Return you must correct it and re-send it before 19 May to avoid a penalty.

If we get your Return before 6 April 2008 (including Cessation Returns) we will still validate it and let you know if we have rejected or accepted it, but we will only send the information to our other tax and NI systems after we start to process Returns in early April.

We will not accept more than one complete Return for the same PAYE Reference and you cannot replace a Return once we have accepted it.

You will have to send an amendment if you need to change anything.

Sending Returns in parts

If your organisation needs to, you can send your Return in more than one part (P14s and P35 sent separately). The way that we send acceptance and rejection messages for part Returns will change from April. Find out more on our Part return page.

Returns sent before 6 April 2008

If we get your Return before 6 April 2008 (including Cessation Returns) we will still validate it and let you know if we have rejected or accepted it, but we will only send the information to our other tax and NI systems after we start to process Returns in early April.

Sending supplementary or amended information

Once your Return has been accepted you can only change any of the information on it by sending an amendment. You must:

  • send P14 and P35 details showing only the difference between the figure on the original Return and what it should be (for example, for £100 too much tax, show ‘-100’ (not ‘R’))
  • send a letter to your HMRC office saying why your Return was not full and complete in the first place

You must send a P35 with an amended P14 even if there is no change to the P35 figures.

We treat a whole Return as your complete Return for that year. Sending amended information means that your original Return was not full and complete and you may be charged a penalty.
Amendments do not have to be sent in the same way as the original Return (Internet, Electronic Data Interchange, magnetic media or paper). For example, if you sent your Return from your own software, you could send amendments using our free Online Return and Forms - PAYE product.

If you need a duplicate or additional P35 to send amended information, contact your HMRC office. You can get P14s from the Employer Orderline.

£100 tax-free!

We will credit a £100 tax-free payment to your PAYE account if you:

  • have to make a 2007-08 Return (see Who must send an Employer Annual Return)
  • had fewer than 50 employees on 30 October 2006 (or first became an employer during 2006-07)
  • send a 2007-08 Employer Annual Return online that passes our quality checks
    We will not make a tax-free payment where the Return is unnecessary. If you send a Return with no financial entries, we will update our records and issue you with an acknowledgement. We may contact you later to see if we can close your PAYE scheme

Tax-free payment confirmation

We will tell you when we have credited your £100 tax-free payment to your PAYE record. You will get an online notification if you have registered and activated PAYE Online for Employers – Internet, by using our Data Provisioning Service. We send an online notification even if you do not normally get in-year notices, for example, P6s online. We will send the online notice to your agent if you have given us authority to send information to them online.

We will only send a tax-free payment letter on paper if:

  • you have not registered for PAYE Online for Employers - Internet
  • you have de-activated PAYE Online for Employers - Internet
  • you have not authorised your agent to get information on your behalf and you have also not registered to use PAYE Online for Employers - Internet

Tax-free payment notifications will go out as soon as we start to deal with Returns in early April.

How to get your £100

The quickest and easiest way that most of you can get your tax-free payment is to 'self-serve' by deducting the £100 from your next PAYE payment(s) to us for 2008-09. You can ‘self-serve’ as soon as you get the following message for your Return:

‘9004: the EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation.’

Your software developer may re-phrase the messages that we send before they appear on your software. So, check what acceptance and rejection messages you will see, with your provider.

It is possible that you will get your tax-free payment notification after you have self-served your payment. If you do, please ignore the tax-free payment letter.

Where the payment due is less than the amount of the tax-free payment, we recommend that you send a 'nil' PAYE payslip for any complete month(s) or quarter(s) covered by the tax-free payment. Or do it online. We will not then send you a reminder for that period.

Your online 'letter' will tell you how to get a cheque payment from the Accounts Office if you cannot 'self-serve' the tax-free payment. Cheque payments will take some time to be received.

Employers with fewer than 50 employees who send their online Return before 6 April 2008

If you send your Return before 6 April, we will validate the Return and, if it meets the Quality Standard, send you an acceptance message. But we will not credit the payment to your PAYE account or send confirmation until we have started to process Returns after 6 April. Because the payment will be credited against your 2008-09 payment record, you must not ‘self-serve’ the amount from the 2007-08 tax-year.

Employers who cease during 2007-08

If you cease during the year, you can send you Return online as soon as it is ready. You do not have to wait until the end of the tax year. You can still get a tax-free payment if you ceased and had fewer than 50 employees; we have a clerical system to award the payment as soon as your Return has passed the Quality Standard. We will award the tax-free payment to your last year’s PAYE account (in most cases this will be 2007-08).

P35 Tax-free payment box

The amount of tax-free payment that you have to show on the P35 may not be straightforward. Read our guidance before completing your P35.

Accounting for the tax-free payments

We recommend that you show the tax-free payments in your financial accounts as 'other operating income'. The payments are not taxable (wherever you show it), so your Self Assessment or Corporation Tax computations should show profit reduced by the payments included in your accounts.

Tax-free payments and VAT

You do not have to pay VAT on your tax-free payments for early online filing, nor do you have to show them on your VAT Return.

Contractors and P35 box 23

If you are a Contractor as well as an employer, box 23 of the P35 is for the total of the figures entered on monthly return CIS300 for 2007-08. You cannot use this box to correct your monthly returns. Contact the CIS Helpline on 0845 366 7899 if you need to adjust a monthly returns.

Penalties

Late filing penalty

Extra Statutory Concession B46 allows you up to seven more business days after the Employer Annual Return filing deadline of 19 May to send your Return before we start to calculate a late filing penalty. This concession allows for postal delays and problems with Internet connections, including delays and occasional slow service experienced. We will not charge a 2007-08 late filing penalty if we have your Return by midnight on 26 May 2008.

If you are a small employer, you will still get your tax-free payment if you send your Return online after 26 May, but you may be charged the late filing penalty.

Online filing penalty

If you have to send your Return online, we will charge you a penalty if you send any part of your Return on paper or by magnetic media.

Get more help with online filing

The Online Services Helpdesk is the contact point for technical queries about connections to online services and queries arising with our Online Return and Forms – PAYE.

General PAYE enquiries must still be directed to the Employer Helpline.

Employers

Do it online: Online filing and electronic payment handbook
Employer Bulletin
Employer CD-ROM 2008

Agents

Working Together

Software Developers

Notes for Payroll Software Developers
Quality Standard

Email alerts

If you want us to send you email alerts when you have new notices and reminders to deal with, you must use the link ‘change email address’ under ‘Notice Options’ on your PAYE service page. You must do this even if you gave us your email address when you first registered.