This whole RTI thing

[captainham]

Yes, and HMRC will therefore need the personal bank details of just about everyone of a working age in the UK. So no potential security issue there then ...

Perhaps they can link up with RBS/Natwest to actually issue the payments, it would be a match made in heaven.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

From an accountants perspective, the concern is that across NNN clients, theres quite a sizeable admin overhead.

At present we can generally set up salary amounts and payslips in advance at start of year / change of circumstances / client joining - what RTI will mean is a monthly press of the button. In theory not a issue, but over NNN clients, login for each one, couple of mouse clicks, etc, it will be a issue. Hopefully some batching software will come to market, but then theres a cost tradeoff cf using good value MoneySoft payroll.

Its not new - we've had similar for the Construction Industry for a few years now.

And, of course, coming on the heels of this soon, will be Automatic Opt In for pensions.

The whole direction of travel is to make payroll, even for the smallest businesses, more complex. In theory good for my business - accounting - but I'm not sure whether clients are going to want to pay us to do what the government was doing... Its actually a huge transfer of responsibility from government to private sector with, inevitably, no compensation. Guess thats the way of the world but it would be nice for that to be made clear upfront!

[d000hg]

Yes, and HMRC will therefore need the personal bank details of just about everyone of a working age in the UK. So no potential security issue there then ...

Considering just how many companies* hold account details of sizeable portions of the population, I don't really see that as such an issue.

* the big energy companies, water companies, BT, banks each probably have info on 10%+ of the population. TV licensing a far bigger chunk. And of course the government already has one bank account for virtually every household for council tax (though probably not centralised).

A plan B - set up a company specially targeted at helping HMRC do this stuff?