Recruitment agencies: what the April 2015 changes in reporting requirements mean for you. As every recruitment agency, umbrella company and contractor knows, HMRC are continually changing legislation in their efforts to crack down on tax avoidance and to discourage behaviour such as disguised employment. While legislative tweaks may be put into place with the intention of targeting tax avoiders, it is often those honest contractors and compliant agencies who bear the brunt of any changes. The next tax year will bring added responsibilities for recruitment agencies, as comprehensive reporting requirements come into force on 6 April 2015. There are still a couple of months to prepare – do you have the systems in place to meet these new requirements? The fundamentals From July 6th, employment intermediaries (including recruitment agencies) must send quarterly reports to HMRC detailing workers that aren’t counted as employees – either because they are under PAYE elsewhere (e.g. at an umbrella company) or because the agency doesn’t control or supervise those workers. This covers temporary workers only, with some exemptions – such as entertainers, actors and models. Sending the reports Reports must be sent to HMRC within a month following each reporting period (for example, the report for April 2015 – July 2015 must be sent in by 5 August). Amendments can be made, but these must be done by the end of the next reporting period (in the former example, November 5). When sending a report, you must include your full contact details, PAYE reference, the start/end dates of the report period, the worker’s personal details, engagement and payment details. Specifics For every worker, you must give their full name (with title), date of birth, gender, address, national insurance number (or passport number if they don’t have an NI number) and unique taxpayer reference (if they are self-employed or a member of a partnership). This part of the report shouldn’t be too much hassle as all these details should be in the company database and ready to send. Engagement and payment details may be rather more onerous to complete. Here, you must state how workers were engaged to do the work set (e.g. through a partnership, self-employed, through another PAYE party), when the engagements start/end, details of hours worked, amount paid, the full name or trading name of whoever received payments (plus company registration number where appropriate) and whether or not the payment included VAT. Agencies are legally required to keep records and data that prove their reports are correct for three years after the tax year they relate to. By working with ePayMe, we will be able to provide you with assistance in meeting these reporting requirements.
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