CISR67630 - Monthly return: temporarily inactive schemes: how to set and unset inactivity

| CISR67000 | Information contents | |—————————————————————————————————–|———————-|

Inactivity can be requested in the following ways

  • By ticking box 8 on page 4 of a paper-based contractor’s monthly return
  • By checking the relevant box under the declarations section of a return filed electronically
  • By telephone (See first paragraph of CISR67640 before reading further)
  • By correspondence

If you are satisfied that a period of inactivity can be set, this is how you do it.

  1. Identify the customer (you will need either a UTR, NINO, Accounts Office reference or Employer Reference)
  2. Authenticate the customer (see CISR20000 for more details here)
  3. Select the scheme you wish to check from the list in the top panel. (Typically there will be just one entry here, but remember that contractors can have more than one scheme)
  4. From the main CIS menu, select ‘Update Customer ’. This will take you to the ‘designatory details’ window.
  5. Scroll down and select ‘next’. This will take you to the ‘scheme details’ window.
  6. Enter the relevant date in the inactivity start date boxes at the top right of the window (that is, under the ‘subcontractor first paid’ line). The format to use is DD/MM/YYYY. DD will always be 06 here. The default date will be 06 of the current period. The inactivity period start date is the 6th of the current month. So, if today’s date is 23 May, the start date is 6th May. You cannot set a retrospective inactivity period start date. That is, one prior to the current month.
  7. Enter the relevant date in the inactivity end date boxes. The format to use is DD/MM/YYYY. DD will always be 05 here. The inactivity period end date will be five periods on from the current period. So, if today’s date is 23 May, period 1 is 6th May to 5th June. Period 6 is therefore 6th October to 5th November. Remember the only period appropriate to a requested period of inactivity is six months at a time. There is only one exception to this. See important note 2 at CISR67010 for more information.
  8. Scroll down and select the ‘OK’ button. This takes you back to the CIS main menu. Output of returns to the scheme will now be inhibited for the period of inactivity set.

If you are satisfied that a period of inactivity can be unset, take the following steps:

  1. Follow steps 1-5 above, then
  2. Simply change the inactivity end date to the month immediately preceding the month for which subcontractors are re-engaged by the contractor to re-activate the scheme. So where subcontractors are re-engaged from 15/10/2010 the Inactivity end date would need to be changed to 05/10/2010. This will then ensure that a monthly return for the period to 05/11/2010 is issued to the contractor.
  3. Scroll down and select ‘next’, then ‘OK’ at the ‘scheme agent’ window. This will take you back to the CIS main menu.
  4. If inactivity ceased at a date in the past, you will now need to consider either the manual or pre-populated issue of returns for the periods previously covered by the inactivity indicators. See CISR62630 for the manual issue of returns, or go to step 7 of the action guide at CISR62640 for the issued of replacement pre-populated returns. Finally, it should be remembered that ‘unseting’ inactive periods will result in penalties being issued for missing returns, so should be done only after much consideration.