Changes have been made to the PAYE regulations to allow employers to provide P60 information to their employees electronically.
The revamp will apply from the 2010/11 tax year onwards. There is no alteration to the deadline for providing the P60 data that is before 1 June following the end of the tax year.
When deciding whether to provide forms P60 electronically employers may need to confirm with staff members that they want to receive their P60 electronically.
It will be necessary, for example, to take into account employees’ ability to access the information and provide secure facilities to view and print the P60.
HMRC will continue to provide the P60(Continuous) and P60(SingleSheet) forms on paper. Substitute P60s that arise from the output of an electronic version must carry the text, ‘This is a printed copy of an eP60’.
Duplicate P60s for the tax year 2010/11 onwards, irrespective of whether they are provided on paper or electronically, will no longer need to carry a ‘duplicate’ annotation.
If an amendment needs to made to the details shown on an original P60, the employee must be given employee details of the amendment. Employers can do this by giving them a letter showing the amendment or a new P60 marked replacement, provided on paper or electronically.
There will be no facility for electronic P60 information to be emailed to HMRC. When processing repayments they will still require any claim to be supported by a paper P60 or the printed output of an electronic P60.