PAYE90010 - Reconcile individual: underpayments: voluntary direct payments

The Voluntary Direct Payments procedures can refer to voluntary payments for

  • Coded out underpayments following end of year reconciliation
  • Customers can send a voluntary payment to pay all or part of an underpayment that is successfully coded into a future year.
  • Underpayments that cannot be coded out up to and including tax years 2016-17
  • From 2016-17 Simple Assessment has been introduced as a legislative method of collecting underpayments on PAYE that cannot be collected by a tax code. This will replace the current voluntary payment process where there is an underpayment which cannot be coded.

If an individual prefers to make payment directly rather than have any underpayment included in their code they can make payment either

  • Using a credit or debit card, through their Personal tax Account (PTA). The P800 tax calculation will advise customers if they can do this online.
  • Directly to Banking Operations
Or
  • To their own processing office

Where

  • You are reviewing work item 236 to request a voluntary payment, follow the guidance at PAYE90011
  • The customer contacts you prior to you working work item 236 and requests to make the payment in full, see action guide tax40046

The procedure can also be used to collect tax arising on income received by the estate of a deceased person during the period of administration. These payments will not be accounted for on the PAYE Service.

Where a year is reconciled underpaid and a voluntary payment exists on a record which covers the amount underpaid, this will be set against the new reconciliation result.

Where a voluntary payment exists on a year which is reconciled underpaid the system will check

  • Where the voluntary payment is more than the underpayment value (including tolerances) the system will allocate the payment and repay the remaining value to the customer
  • Where the voluntary payment is less than the underpayment amount and reduces the underpayment amount to a value within PAYE tolerance the year will be reconciled balanced
  • Where the voluntary payment is less than the underpayment amount and reduces the payment to a value which can be coded, the voluntary payment will be allocated and the remaining underpaid amount collected via the tax code
  • If the remaining underpayment cannot be collected via the tax code a Simple Assessment charge will be created for the full value of the underpayment and any existing voluntary payment will be repaid to the customer

Where a customer wants to pay a potential underpayment (PUP) or In Year Adjustment directly and the PUP or In Year Adjustment arose in CY, offer the customer a cumulative code. If the PUP or In Year Adjustment arose in CY-1 (for example, it is currently being collected through the customer's code) and the customer is unwilling to wait for auto reconciliation before making payment, offer the customer an early review. The customer will need to send in any documents we need to make the review.