HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will initially not impose penalties on firms who fail to properly submit payroll data in real-time as the rollout of the major new Real Time Information (RTI) scheme continues.

By March 2013, around 6m individuals will have PAYE (pay as you earn) data submitted on a regular basis by their employers to HMRC. Firms with over 5,000 employees need to agree a start date with HMRC so that they are routinely reporting in real time by October 2013.

There will be no penalties against employees who send in data late until April 2014, with no penalties for inaccuracies charged for submissions made during the 2012-13 tax year, although penalties may be imposed from the next tax year onwards.

The full guidance on PAYE/National Insurance payments and deadlines is available through the HMRC website.

Suzanne Newton, RTI programme director, says that the delay in imposing penalties “will give most employers a year to get used to reporting in real time before implementing the new penalties”.

“The delivery of PAYE real time reporting is on track. HMRC has been piloting RTI since April 2012 and it is going really well,” she adds. “Feedback from pilot employers is that reporting in real time is straightforward for the vast majority of them.”

See the feature from October's edition of Recruiter for a full report on the impact for the recruitment industry of the new scheme.