HM Revenue & Customs have started to contact employers who may wish to make a claim under the Job Retention Scheme and have confirmed that employers, wishing to apply directly themselves, will need both a government gateway account and also be enrolled for ‘PAYE online’. It is also anticipated that those looking to make a claim under the self-employment income support scheme will also require a government gateway account.
You may, therefore, wish to check now that you already have an account, and retrieve your login details, or create an account if you have not already done so as it can sometimes take a few days to set up. This could potentially avoid a further delay to submitting a claim and receiving payment of the grant once applications can be made.
Please see below for our simple step by step guide on how this can be set up.
Step-by-step guide
- Go to HMRC’s login page.
- Click on the ‘Sign in’ button under the heading ‘Sign in to HMRC Online Services’
- You will then be directed to a login page. Under the sign in button, click on ‘Create sign in details’.
- Enter your email address and click on ‘Continue’.
- A confirmation code will then be sent to you by email which should be used to verify your email address.
- Once confirmed you will then be issued with a User ID for your government gateway account. Please take a note of your User ID and keep it somewhere safe as it is not straightforward to retrieve at a later date.
Further details of how to retrieve your user credentials for an existing account can also be found here. If you have any questions or need any help setting up your account, please let us know.
PAYE online
To enrol for ‘PAYE online’ you can click here, or visit GOV.UK and search for 'PAYE Online for employers'. To register you will need your PAYE reference and accounts office reference which would have been included on the letter from HMRC when you registered as an employer.
ICAEW have also released a step-by-step guide to help you set this up, click here.
Previously, you would have had to wait 10 days for an authentication code to arrive in the post before you could complete the process of adding a service, this step has now been removed. This is a welcome move, as authorisations should now only take a couple of days to complete rather than up to two weeks.
Other services
For an increasing number of services, HMRC also require an account to be set up and/or agent authorisation to be given via the Government Gateway. This includes making tax digital (MTD) for VAT and most recently the new capital gains tax return for residential property disposals.