HMRC's new reporting requirements released

As part of the HMRC’s intermediary reporting requirements (part of the Employment Intermediaries Legislation), HMRC have finally released the details of what information about contractors they require each quarter starting from April this year. It;s hard to believe, but the final list of information is a trimmed down version of what was originally proposed!  GSA Techsource has been involved in working with HMRC in testing the new reporting solution but, unfortunately, had little say in what data is required. Just a few months ago, HMRC had told us they wanted dates of birth and gender, potentially leaving us and our clients open to discrimination claims. Fortunately we were not the only voice that raised grave concerns over this point, and HMRC appeared, to a point, to have conceded.

GSA primarily engages with Ltd company contractors, and therefore has a contractual relationship with that limited company. However, HMRC require us to supply the workers home address details along with their National Insurance number – this may (or will) prove a highly contentious issue with many contractors in the market place but appears to be something that cannot be avoided.

I sincerely hope HMRC have given enough time for our software suppliers to develop solutions within their software to at least go some way to making the collation of this information bearable, although I do see it is going to be an expensive and time consuming problem the whole industry now faces.