HMRC online saying my P11D payment was due April 22 in one place and 22 July in another!

[TheMrs]

We are a small Ltd and pay NIC P11D once a year, always in July. Our accountant advised we were owe £701 this year and I logged onto my HMRC dashboard today from our holiday to make the payment by debit card. The dashboard showed the correct amount owed and the payment deadline of 22 July.

However when I went further to make the payment and allocated it to March to April 17, I was informed the payment was late as it was due 22 April.

In a bit of a panic (!) I reversed out and selected the first quarter of this year instead and made the payment of £701 against that to avoid further reference to late payments. I've kept a PDF of the payment screen so I have proof it's been paid but obviously it is currently wrongly allocated.

Could anyone please advise where I've gone wrong? My accountant is excellent and I've not encountered this problem before but I am feeling a bit worried now and especially as I am overseas on holiday it is very hard to keep up.

I'd have thought that the very fact I've made the payment and it is for the correct amount means HMRC will join up the dots eventually. However I am worried that for some reason my accountant and I have messed up and the payment SHOULD have been made in April.

With thanks for your help,

[AmanSood]

Hi TheMrs,

The NIC you are referring to which is payable on the Form P11D is employer Class 1A NIC at 13.8%. This is payable to HMRC by 22 July following the end of the tax year if paying electronically.

The 22 April deadline you are referring to is for paying the PAYE/NIC for the 2016/17 tax year to HMRC. This is completely separate to the Class 1A NIC payment mentioned above.

In terms of next steps therefore you need to do the following. Go to this link https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-1a-national-insurance and follow the instructions to make payment of the Class 1A NIC and ensure you use the Class 1A NIC payment reference to enable HMRC to allocate this correctly.

The £701 you have already paid will be allocated by HMRC to the PAYE/NIC liability for this tax year and therefore do not worry this payment is not lost. This will be offset against your PAYE/NIC due in the next quarter of this tax year.

Hope this helps.

Aman

[TheMrs]

Hi TheMrs,

The NIC you are referring to which is payable on the Form P11D is employer Class 1A NIC at 13.8%. This is payable to HMRC by 22 July following the end of the tax year if paying electronically.

The 22 April deadline you are referring to is for paying the PAYE/NIC for the 2016/17 tax year to HMRC. This is completely separate to the Class 1A NIC payment mentioned above.

In terms of next steps therefore you need to do the following. Go to this link https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-1a-national-insurance and follow the instructions to make payment of the Class 1A NIC and ensure you use the Class 1A NIC payment reference to enable HMRC to allocate this correctly.

The £701 you have already paid will be allocated by HMRC to the PAYE/NIC liability for this tax year and therefore do not worry this payment is not lost. This will be offset against your PAYE/NIC due in the next quarter of this tax year.

Hope this helps.

Aman

Thanks for your help Aman. We are a small business and can't afford to make a second payment for £701. I wonder if our accountant phoned HMRC tomorrow the payment could be reallocated?

Otherwise we're in trouble!

Best regards

[AmanSood]

HMRC's systems are a bit of a mess so not sure whether they will correctly allocate the payment to the Class 1A NIC for the 2016/17 tax year. It's worth a try but if HMRC don't do this correctly then you may get charged interest for what their systems see as a late payment of the Class 1A NIC which would be more messy/time consuming to resolve... But hopefully your accountant can get them to reallocate the payment correctly.

[TheMrs]

Thank you again for replying - especially on a Saturday!

I will ask my accountant to contact HMRC tomorrow and see what can be done. I worry that any late payments/penalties make us more likely to suffer a closer look by HMRC. We have nothing to hide but of course that doesn't stop it all being very stressful.

Kind regards

[AmanSood]

totally understandable and it's my pleasure. Do feel free to reach out as we work with a number of clients in helping them to minimise their costs/expenses when looking at their employees/benefits etc and we would be happy to have a no fee and no obligation chat if it would be of interest. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend.

[TheMrs]

Sorry, last quick question; I've double checked our HMRC dashboard and the payment receipt and both refer to the payment as being for "Amount: GBP 702.01
Description: Employers' PAYE and National Insurance - Payment to HMRC". Is that definitely the wrong thing I've paid? It's so frustrating as the dashboard literally had the amount due directly above a "pay" button which I pressed and followed. I find the dashboard very hard to use and not at all user friendly!

It's just a worry as our employees' NIC bill last year was for £10 so obviously at that rate it would take us 70 years to use up the amount I've paid to the wrong bit

Thanks again

[AmanSood]

definitely the payment has been made in error to the wrong account. On a related note also surprising that the employer Class 1A NIC payable is £701 given your ee NIC bill is only £10. You must provide some good benefits to staff

[SteLacca]

I'm going to hazard a guess that when you paid you added 1712 as the suffix to your reference. It should have been 1713.

HMRC should, indeed, be able to reallocate with a problem.