HMRC cuts - Withdrawal of agent copies of mail

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has announced that it plans to stop issuing copies to agents of some mail which is sent to clients as part of its efforts to cut costs.

The full text of HMRC’s Briefing Note ‘Withdrawal of some PAYE and SA forms Background’ states:

Agents will be aware that all Government Departments have been asked to look critically at the measures they can take to reduce spending and save on costs. HMRC is no exception to this and we expect to face some significant financial challenges over the coming years.

In anticipation of these challenges we are reviewing the forms we send to agents and we have decided that some of these will no longer be issued. We are sorry if some of these changes are unwelcome but we have tried to look for savings in those areas where there will be minimal impact on our customers.

Forms to be Withdrawn/Suspended:

Form	Date of Withdrawal	Impact/Effect
P2 – PAYE Coding Notice	December 2010 – before 2011/12 coding run	Agent copy to be withdrawn. Customer/client copy to include a new message suggesting that the form is shown to their tax agent or adviser.
P800 – Tax Calculation	August/September 2010	Agent copy to be withdrawn. Customer/client copy to include a new message suggesting that the form shown to their tax agent or adviser.
P810 – Targeted review form – sent to customers who don’t complete a Self Assessment tax return.	April 2010 –Decision taken not to “bulk issue”	Agents are not notified of the issue of form P810 to their clients. These forms were not issued in 2009 and a review of the form is currently taking place.
SA 250 – Letter advising the customer of their Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) and detailing the requirement to complete an annual Self Assessment tax return.	October 2010	Agent copy to be withdrawn. Customer/client copy to include a new message suggesting that the letter is shown to their tax agent or adviser.
SA 251 –Letter advising the customer that HMRC will not require future Self Assessment tax returns to be completed.	October 2010	Agent copy to be withdrawn. Customer/client copy to include a new message suggesting that the letter is shown to their tax agent or adviser.
SA 252 – Letter to customers who don’t submit a Self Assessment tax return but are liable to Income Tax at the higher rate.	September 2010	Both agent and customer copies to be suspended this year and a review of the form is taking place place. (These forms were not issued in 2009)

We hope that agents will understand our decision to withdraw these communications. We estimate, for example, that we will save in the region of £1.25 million by discontinuing the issue of agents’ copies of Forms P2 and P800 alone.

Hard decisions and choices will inevitably have to be made and we will continue to seek opportunities to:

• Improve our current forms
• Reduce the number we send out
• (In the longer term) Consider whether there are other forms which could be replaced or even removed entirely.

We will also be introducing system enhancements from December 2010 to delay the issue of P2s to SA customers until all 2010 SA Returns (for those meeting the 31/1/2011 online filing deadline) are captured. This means that the code we issue will be based on the information in the return and will avoid the need for amendments had we issued the code earlier. This change was originally proposed by agents in a National Working Together sub-group and should, we think, be very welcome.

We think that agents will also be pleased to know that recent changes to our National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS) system mean that multiple forms P161 should no longer be issued every time a new source of occupational pension is notified to us.

We will be publishing a message on our website about these changes very soon but, in view of the imminent nature of some of them, we wanted our agent partners to have as much notice as possible.