Incorrect PAYE Penalty Notices Down To Human Error

Thu, 11 Oct 2007

As many as 6 per cent of penalty notices sent to UK businesses over their PAYE returns have been issued incorrectly, the taxman has admitted.

HM Revenue and Customs said that up to 12,000 of the 202,000 penalty notices, issued to firms for failing to send in their PAYE end of year returns on time, were sent as an error - down to human slip-ups rather than an unknown IT systems fault, according to the taxman .

"We are very sorry for any inconvenience that this problem may have caused," a statement from HMRC said.

ICAEW tax faculty chairman Paul Aplin welcomed the apology, but said the latest error was the "latest in a series of problems" that have been dogging PAYE online .

"Whatever the percentage it isn't a comfort. They've done a good job on self-assessment online filing and must pay the same attention to PAYE - it's causing huge frustration,' Aplin commented.

The latest PAYE issue was discovered as the taxman faced the Public Accounts Committee over its performance in collecting PAYE tax for 2006-07.

NAO comptroller general Sir John Bourn stated that the department required a "fundamental change" in its computer systems followign similar problems for PAYE 2004-05, when 10,000 penalties were issued incorrectly.
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