The following has been kindly provided:
Dear Gentlefolk
HMRC is aware some employers have incorrectly received a Generic Notice message between 26/06/2020 and 29/06/2020 to advise them to stop Postgraduate loan deductions. – An EPG member clarified “The message we received told us that we had deducted PGL in error and had to stop the deductions and refund if we could. It then went on to list every employee we were deducting SL’s for, so quite a long list.”
HMRC is currently investigating this issue and you can disregard this Generic Notice prompt.
Please continue to take deductions under the relevant plan / loan type as instructed by the start notice (SL1/PGL1).
HMRC will remove this message from the customer’s online portal shortly. – HMRC has since confirmed that the GNS message has now been removed from the customer’s online portal and 3rd party downloadable software. Unfortunately, the initial email advising of a GNS message cannot be recalled.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards
Colin
Opinion
The HMRC use of GNS messages is bizarre at the best of times. Notices SL1/2 and PGL1/2 are electronic instructions that may automatically be applied to pay solutions. GNS messages are a free text message which often require manual reading. In relation to student loan and postgraduate loans messages and prompts, their presence is nonsense. Issue the electronic instruction!
PAYadvice.UK 30/6/2020
