Posted by James Pearson on 28 Oct 2011
HMRC Warns of Employing ‘A.N Other’
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has urged employers to take greater care with their paperwork after receiving more than 500 employer returns for 2009/10 claiming to employ ‘A.N Other’.
The PAYE data sent to HMRC provides details of employees National Insurance and tax deductions and HMRC has to spend time correcting errors that would otherwise lead to problems with the employee’s HMRC records.
HMRC’s Director of Customer Operations, Jim Harra said:
“Most employers get their PAYE returns right. The few who don’t can cause problems for their employees, for example, incorrect deductions of tax. Around 80 per cent of errors in employee data are due to an incorrect name, date of birth or national insurance number – straightforward information that can be collected and checked quite easily.
“So, whether you are employing ‘Mr or Mrs J Smith’ – or even ‘Mr or Mrs A N Other’, please use the full and official name on your PAYE paperwork. First names are very important, especially for common surnames”.
“We really want employers to check that they are sending us the right details for all their employees, to make life easier for them, HMRC and their employees.”
Common Errors on Paperwork
As well as A.N Other entries, HMRC received the following errors;
- 128 staff entered as Mr, Ms or Mrs “Dummy”.
- 572 people whose surnames only included the letter X, ranging from Mr X to Mrs XXXXXX.
- 75 staff with the surname “Casual”, “Cleaners”, “Workers” and “Students”.
- 824 employees with the surname “Unknown”.
- 40 people were apparently 200 years old or more after incorrect dates of birth were submitted.
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See also…
HMRC Free to Access Taxpayer Bank Accounts
A Record Number of On-Time Taxpayers
Modernising the Personal Tax System
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