Employer Bulletin: February 2023

16 February 2023

The 100th edition of the Employer Bulletin has been published by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The Bulletin contains a wealth of information of interest to payroll professionals and the work that they carry out, and the CIPP recommends that it is read in its entirety.

Key items from the bulletin are highlighted below, but the full version can be accessed here.

Reporting advances of salary

These are arrangements between an employer and an employee, allowing employees access to some of their earned salary before their normal pay day.

  • under current legislation advance payments are treated as a payment on account of earnings and employers must submit an additional full payment submission (FPS) to record these
  • HMRC announced the appropriate reporting of these salary advances in the Agent Update 102
  • HMRC recognises the administrative burden of the additional reporting and will amend secondary legislation, so that salary advances can be reported on or before the employee’s contractual pay day. This means each payment of salary only needs to be included on an FPS once
  • employers who are currently reporting salary advances on or before the contractual pay date may continue to do so until new legislation is in place
  • further information, including plans to update guidance, will appear in future editions of the Employer Bulletin

Issuing of P9 coding notices to employers for 2023 to 2024

  • email notifications will be sent from week commencing 6 February 2023 until 5 March 2023
  • paper P9 coding notices are expected to arrive with employers on or around 21 March 2023

Reporting expenses and benefits for the tax year ending 5 April 2023

  • from 6 April 2023 HMRC will no longer accept new informal payrolling benefits arrangements
  • register now to payroll your benefits from 6 April 2023
  • from 6 April 2023 all P11D and P11D(b) forms must be reported online

Employer PAYE liabilities data is now available sooner

  • from February 2023 employers will be able to view the previous tax month’s PAYE liability via PAYE online from the 10th day of the month

Changes to Basic PAYE Tools and PAYE Desktop Viewer (PDV)

  • this has been updated to version 2.6

Basic PAYE Tools — new release

  • an updated version will be released at the end of March 2023 to support the 2023/24 tax year. It is important that you update and are using version 23.0 from 6 April 2023

Student and postgraduate loan thresholds from April 2023

Deductions for:

  • plans 1, 2 and 4 remain at 9% for any earnings above the respective thresholds
  • postgraduate loans remain at 6% for any earnings above the respective threshold

How to help employees with income tax relief for employment expenses

The P87 form changed on 21 December 2022, claims must be submitted on HMRC’s latest version of the form and must include the following information:

  • section 1, all details — title and contact phone number are optional
  • section 2, employer PAYE reference number
  • section 2, type of industry is needed but only if the claim includes flat rate expenses 
  • P87 forms received that do not include the required information or are not on HMRC’s latest form will be rejected

Off-payroll working rules

  • underlying rules are unchanged – individuals working like an employee should pay broadly the same tax as individuals who are directly employed

Getting ready for the National Minimum Wage (NMW) rate increase

  • on 1 April 2023 the government will increase the National Living Wage (NLW) rate for workers aged 23 years and over by 9.7% to £10.42
  • you can join one of the live webinars taking place throughout March 2023, where a panel of experts will be answering questions. You can register now for the webinars
  • further information and guidance is available on calculating the minimum wage.

Information provided in this news article may be subject to change. Please make note of the date of publication to ensure that you are viewing up to date information.