Debt fears over tax errors as 3.5 million will have to pay money back
Debt fears over tax errors as 3.5 million will have to pay money back
Millions of workers face having to give money back to the Government after inadvertently paying the wrong amount of tax. Mistakes by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) left an estimated 5.5 million underpaying or overpaying their tax through the Pay As You Earn System (PAYE) in 2013-14, according to the Daily Telegraph. Around 3.5 million people are thought to have paid too little and will now have to pay the money back over the coming years. Tax officials estimate the average error is around £300, the newspaper said.
RTI was supposed to make PAYE more accurate, not less. So why are there more (errors) this year, with RTI in full flow, than last year, when RTI was only a pilot?
David Heaton of Baker Tilly
The 5.5 million errors for 2013-14 are higher than the 5.2 million in the previous year, despite the introduction of a £270 million scheme designed to make the tax system more accurate. The PAYE system checks tax paid against tax owed at the end of each year, meaning under- or overpayments can come about through changes in financial circumstances. The HMRC's new Real Time Information (RTI) programme allows employers to report wage changes on a weekly or monthly basis, theoretically making tax payments more accurate.
The effect of Real Time Information is not reflected yet as it has not bedded in but, over time, RTI will help to reduce the number of cases that have to be reconciled