Calls to allow employers to distribute electronic P60s

News Article - 18 November 2009
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Following a survey of their members, the Institute of Payroll Professionals has begun lobbying HM Revenue & Customs to allow employers to issue P60s electronically. 90% of respondents felt the forms - sent to employees at the end of the tax year - should be supplied digitally.

Many of the returns that employers must send to HMRC have already become digitised. P14s can be submitted electronically (to become compulsory along with P35s at the end of the tax year), and digital P45s will become compulsory from 2011. The Government seems to be making a move towards total payroll digitisation, and it may only be a matter of time before P60s are included.

The news should come as a welcome development for employers. Issuing P60s electronically, or for that matter any e-document, delivers a host of strategic benefits to companies of all sizes, such as reducing business costs. There's no need to print and post them, and reduced paper usage improves a company's environmental profile and carbon footprint. The biggest attraction to many businesses, however, is freeing up administrative resources from manually intervening in the production of these forms. They can also be re-sent at the touch of a button.

Digitising the payroll process has also been considered a step towards combating identify theft, which has become a hot topic recently. It's believed to cost the UK's economy £1.7bn a year, so any steps to reduce the amount of personally sensitive information that might be mislaid, stolen or retrieved, are positive.

Access understands payroll digitisation is new to many business owners. But with the host of benefits it provides, it makes sense to future-proof your company as soon as possible. After all, within a few years many aspects will become compulsory. At Access, businesses can rest assured that our solutions always meet the latest legislative requirements as well as allowing businesses to automate many of their processes. It also enforces better compliance through a comprehensive audit trail that can be viewed in full at any time.

Article keywords: P60, electronic payslip, epayslip

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