Credit on PAYE Account

Jul, 2015

In early July the HMRC sent out a number of ‘Credit on PAYE Account’ letters to businesses and we have had a number of calls from customers about these letters so we thought it would be a good idea to write a blog about these notifications.

So if you have received a ‘Credit on PAYE Account’ letter from the HMRC you are likely to be thinking one of three things:

  1. Great I have some more money!
  2. Why did I over pay?
  3. Something has gone wrong here.

Whatever your reaction the first thing to do is to start to review your PAYE account and work out why the HMRC think you have a credit on your account.

So where should you start?

Well look at the last communication you had from the HMRC. You might have a credit from a previous tax year that is still being resolved. As far as the Revenue are concerned you have either paid everything, too much or too little, but the first line support won’t be able to tell you which year there was an outstanding variance it’s up to you to keep your own records and know what is going on.

If this is no help then use the ‘What you need to do now’ section on the letter.

  • Have you sent all your RTI submissions? In Qtac software run both the FPS and EPS status reports under ‘File by Internet’ to ensure that you have submitted all the RTI submissions on or before each pay day. These reports are under ‘File by Internet’>’Status Report’
  • Check your ‘Year to Date’ figures are correct. We would suggest that you re-run each HMRC Remittance Advice Report from the beginning of the tax year and save a copy to use in the next step.
  • Next check your PAYE account click here to go to the Online Services Login. Now click the ‘View Account’ option on the left hand side under the PAYE header. In this section you can review the amounts the HMRC think you owe and the amounts you have paid.

Now you are armed with all the information you require to identify where your credit/variance has occurred.

We hope you find the reason behind the variance, the answer might just be a simple case of the HMRC not having processed your RTI submission on time and you have paid your liability earlier that they would have expected. Remember that you have until the 19th of the following month to pay your PAYE liability.