HMRC provide new guidance on errors
HMRC have issued new promotional information on help to prevent RTI errors on HMRC systems. Although they state it as ‘Help to prevent payroll errors’, often there are no errors in the payroll yet the employers account at HMRC does not balance leading to what may be termed a ‘PAYE RTI disputed charge..’.
RTI dispute charge – what’s that?
An RTI disputed charge arises when the amount of PAYE due according to your payroll records does not match the amount shown in HMRC’s records. This can happen when missing, duplicate or incorrect RTI submissions create discrepancies in HMRC’s records.
Discrepancies can lead to you overpaying PAYE as well as underpaying it. Employers should tell HMRC about any discrepancy they identify whether it results in a debit or a credit.
If you dispute an amount you owe, HMRC will usually pause debt recovery while it investigates the issue.
Duplication of employee records
Duplicate employment records is one of the common RTI errors. HMRC have historically created millions of them since Real Time Information (RTI) was introduced formally in April 2013.
A duplicate employment record is an additional HMRC record created for the same employee. The records may have different year-to-date totals or payroll IDs. Although not admitted by the HMRC communication, they sometimes have the same payroll IDs.
Duplicate employee records cause:
- unneeded debt collection activity
- employees to pay the wrong amount of tax, National Insurance contributions and student loan repayments
- employees getting the wrong amount of Universal Credit
Accurate starter information
HMRC suggest that employers make sure all employee details are recorded accurately.
Make sure names match official documents and that dates follow U.K. conventions on the order of day month and year as opposed to some overseas use of month day and year. even transmission of dates across different setting of Microsoft software can result in date corruption.
A duplicate HMRC records are known where:
- Their is a starter checklist trigger through RTI for an employee who is not a new starter
- A returning seasonal worker is reported as new starter instead of reporting an irregular payment pattern through RTI – This latter item will be difficult for some employers to control and administer.
Missing data?
Other areas highlighted as causing issues are:
- Incorrect or made up National Insurance numbers, if not known, leave the field blank
- Incorrect dates
- Changes to payroll IDs without the appropriate change markers.
Business changes bring challenges
Other areas covered are transfers, business merges and demerges, takeovers, TUPE etc etc.
So how do you fix a duplicate HMRC record
The guide does state that ‘You will need to ask HMRC to correct your PAYE records’ for either:
- duplicate employment records
- information is linked to the wrong person
As opposed to the helplines telling individuals that their employer must fix their payroll – they do ad it that the employer ‘cannot fix these issues by submitting a new FPS’. They suggest using the Use online form Get help to correct an employer PAYE bill.
Opinion
This new updated Guide for Compliance at least clarifies and helps employers to overcome the account misbalances challenges. It still continues to point a finger of blame on employers, however, it does admit that employers and their payroll software cannot remove duplicates.
GfC22 promotional material
For the full guide, see:
PAYadvice.UK 22/10/2026