It seems that HMRC and The Pensions Regulator are busier than ever adding administrative burden and costs to businesses. The past year has seen RTI introduced whereby all businesses have to report their payroll return to HMRC up to 52 times per year instead of once!

In 2015 Auto-enrolment will mean that employers will have to assess compulsory pension payments for every single employee on every single pay run.

So, for a business which has 10 employees paid weekly one return was required in 2013.

That same business will need 52 returns in 2014 and in 2015 another 520 (yes 520) assessments for compulsory pensions.

This means that between HMRC and The Pensions Regulator they have increased the admin burden by 57,200 per cent which sounds like payday loan interest!

At the same time these authorities have introduced fines and penalties up to £10,000 per day for non-compliance (The Pensions Regulator) and up to 100 per cent of any tax payable HMRC.

All this means that employers will be burdened with either additional staff costs to manage this process or increased professional fees to manage this situation.

Those costs do not even include the consideration that business owners will have up to five per cent added to their wage bill over the coming years in compulsory pension payments.

Economists are flabbergasted why real wages are not increasing but the answer seems to be with their Civil Service colleagues – employers cannot afford to increase pay because they have compulsory pensions and a huge administrative burden imposed on them.

For those employers that are considering employee costs going forward these additional costs must be borne in mind.

Merry Christmas from HMRC and The Pensions Regulator.