Just found out about RTI

**Old Greg** · 7 March 2014, 13:49

Originally posted by evildrome View Post

Hi All,

I've been away from contracting for about 6 years. A bit of a wilderness period where I never made enough to pay tax.

Now that I'm back & earning (since August 2013) I have discovered that I should have been making RTI notifications for any salary I have paid myself.

I have an accountant & they never told me this & I don't remember seeing any letters from HMRC.

Don't imagine that'll cut any ice. Anyway, what to do? Are the HMRC going to get medieval on my ass?

The amount of money (irregular dates, differing amounts) I have taken from the company since Apr 13 is just enough to pay tax on & no more.

I'm thinking that what I might do is declare all the money taken so far as a 'loan', borrow the total sum from my father, pay it into the company thus squaring my 'debt' to zero, then pay it as salary to myself in one lump sum and say "Hey, HMRC, I've just paid myself, how do I do this RTI thing".

I'm not trying to swerve anything, I just don't want to be poking the HMRC beehive with a stick.

Thanks!

From memory they were going to be lenient for 1st year. Someone else can confirm.

**northernladuk** · 7 March 2014, 14:03

Sorry for banging the same drum over and over but my first step in your boots would be to go back to my accountant and give him a grilling. There may be a reason he hasn't told you and if there isn't you want to be gathering enough information as to whether you want to stay with him or not.

He should have told you and he should fix it for you. It's what you pay him for. He may have easy options to put previous payments in the loan account and then do a single RTI at the end of the year or something so I wouldn't start worrying until you have spoken to him.

Lots of chats about RTI on here which can be found using the search.. and example is below..

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=RT...sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Have a read of these and then book some time with your (possibly soon to be ex) accountant.

**TheCyclingProgrammer** · 7 March 2014, 14:30

I do believe HMRC are delaying coming down hard on people over RTI, for this tax year at least.

That said, even if you aren't operating RTI I would have thought you would still have had to been performing standard payroll procedure...payslips, quarterly PAYE payments if you had anything due (or nil submissions) etc.

You're not the first person I've seen post on here who seems to think they can just take money out of the company whenever they feel like it and "do the paperwork" later. Money withdrawn from the company needs to be salary or expenses or dividends if there is enough retained profit (but you still need to do the dividend paperwork at the right time). Random drawings can easily be construed as loans.

As NLUK says you need to return to your accountant and get them to advise you. Your idea about treating your drawings so far as a loan isn't a terrible idea, but it depends on how much you'd be declaring. If it's under £5k, you're fine and you don't need to borrow money to pay it back either - if there's enough profit in the company just declare a dividend and pay it by crediting the director's loan account.

If it's over £5k, then treating it as a loan has other implications that you need to talk to your accountant about (or search on here).

**LisaContractorUmbrella** · 7 March 2014, 14:31

The new automatic in-year PAYE penalties for late filing and late payment and in-year interest were due to start from 6 April. However, HMRC has delayed them to give everyone more time to get used to it (an to iron out a few hiccups at their end I suspect)

The new timetable will be:

· April 2014 - in-year interest on any in-year payments not made by the due date

· October 2014 - automatic in-year late filing penalties

· April 2015 - automatic in-year late payment penalties

From April 2014 HMRC will introduce a new RTI ‘Late Reporting Reason’ data item. This will allow employers to tell the Revenue why they are submitting data late – for example, if they are correcting an earlier submission. It will also suspend the issue of electronic generic notification alerts for late payment and non-filing until April 2014.
- See more at: HMRC delays RTI penalty scheme | Economia

**evildrome** · 7 March 2014, 16:35

Thanks all for the prompt info.

Plenty to think about...

Cheers!

**Contreras** · 8 March 2014, 11:09

Originally posted by evildrome View Post

The amount of money (irregular dates, differing amounts) I have taken from the company since Apr 13 is just enough to pay tax on & no more.

How much exactly (in total, and the split before/after company year end) ?

Is the company even PAYE registered? If not then you need to get that sorted pronto to stand any chance of doing RTI before the end of the tax year.

HMRC have said they will go easy on RTI infractions but stuff you should have known/done for PAYE anyway is business as usual.

**Jessica@WhiteFieldTax** · 11 March 2014, 10:57

Originally posted by northernladuk View Post

Sorry for banging the same drum over and over but my first step in your boots would be to go back to my accountant and give him a grilling.

Depends what the terms of engagement are. If the engagement terms are, say, Company accounts and CT600, with, say, VAT and payroll being taxpayer responsibility, then why should the accountant be involved?

Obviously we are not party to the engagement terms, so TBH speculating doesn't do anything other than confuse the OP.

It potentially demonstrates why checking engagement terms is sensible and also the benefit of a do it all "package" from accountant which then becomes more than just end of year stuff.

**Jessica@WhiteFieldTax** · 11 March 2014, 10:58

Originally posted by evildrome View Post

Thanks all for the prompt info.

Plenty to think about...

Cheers!

Have a think about ** why ** you didn't know. Are you getting employer updates from HMRC? If not, subscribing to Employers Bulletin from HMRC is a good idea.

Just found out about RTI