PAYE41025 - Employer returns: record receipt of employer return: forms P14 rejected by NIC&EO

Each return or return part you receive must be reviewed for completeness on the date of receipt.

This review will identify returns that are

  • Incomplete due to omissions
  • Illegible due to misaligned or faint entries
  • Contain other errors

These returns must not be recorded as received or captured. See subject ‘Checks prior to recording receipt of a return’ PAYE40015 for more information about what are acceptable P14 entries.

Complete returns once checked must then be

  • Recorded as received
And then
  • Captured

Following the receipt of form P228, the National Insurance copies of the forms P14 and the P228 must (unless the employer record has an OCPN scheme type) be sent to NIC&EO for processing.

NIC&EO review

On receipt NIC&EO will carry out checks for legibility and completeness to ensure that the information provided is suitable for transmission to the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS) system.

Note: At that point any unacceptable forms P14 will be returned to the originating office to correct.

A NIC&EO DRF form (Word 42KB) will accompany the P14 highlighting the reason for the rejection and showing the Discrepancy Report Form (DRF) number.

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Office action

As the Processing Office have accepted the forms P14 as satisfactory prior to recording receipt of and capturing the return they must not be sent back to the employer to correct.

The office must take the following action to repair the incomplete forms

  • Review the reverse of NIC&EO DRF form (Word 43KB) 
  • Consider whether the forms P14 can be easily repaired
  • Liaise with the employer to obtain any missing information and then repair the forms P14
  • Repair misaligned entries by
  • Neatly entering figures in the correct box
Or
  • Preparing pro-forma forms P14

This work is time consuming and delays the updating of individual taxpayer records.

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Automatic penalties on ECS

If exceptionally you have accepted an incomplete return which is recorded as received and then captured, no automatic penalty action can be taken under S98A(2) TMA 1970.