Unused PAYE schemes to close

Unused Pay As You Earn (PAYE) schemes will be shut down, HMRC has revealed.

Employers who have not used their schemes will now receive letters explaining that their PAYE schemes have been closed, reports Harris & Co small business accountants.

Any PAYE schemes opened after 5 April this year will be shut down automatically where the employer has not sent any PAYE returns or paid HMRC within four months of the scheme being set up. Schemes registered as annual schemes will not be closed by this process.

HMRC’s director general for personal tax, Ruth Owen, said: ‘Closing schemes that are no longer needed is really important for businesses and for HMRC as it means that HMRC won’t waste employers’ or taxpayers’ time and money by needlessly pursuing returns or debts when in fact none are due.

‘Since April, employers or agents (acting on behalf of their clients) who have set up PAYE schemes that are no longer needed can easily close the scheme by reporting this on their final submission. This new process helps further as it means we can identify and remove unnecessary schemes earlier.’

More than 1.69m employer PAYE schemes, covering over 46m individual records, are already reporting in real time since the launch of new reporting requirements in April.