Salary advances: change to reporting rules

Where an employer makes part of a salary payment to an employee early, strict rules dictate when this must be included in the payroll real time information reporting. A recent change has relaxed the rules – what do you need to know?

Salary advances: change to reporting rules

Up until recently, the rules regarding reporting an advance on earnings required employers to submit an additional full payment submission (FPS) to record them on the day the advance was made. As this created an additional administrative burden, both for the employer and HMRC, as well as increasing the likelihood of Universal Credit errors, the requirement has been changed.

For pay periods falling after 6 April 2024, the advance can be reported on the FPS that covers the contractual payment date. This is the case even if the contractual payment date is in a later tax year. The change means the requirement for extra FPS submissions is removed.

It is important to note that this only applies to “payments on account of earnings”, rather than employer loans, e.g. for season tickets – even though these may be repaid via a deduction of salary each pay period.

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