Request HMRC tax coding and student loan change notices
This article explains how to request HMRC tax coding and student loan change notices for employees. It also explains why notices may be unable to be retrieved.
An HMRC notice is a notification sent by HMRC to employers in cases when an employee's tax code changes in a tax year, or their student loan repayment status changes, for example. The individual employee will also receive a copy of the notice.
Within the FreeAgent app, we refer to both tax code notices and student loan change notices simply as ‘HMRC notices’. Read more about HMRC notices in FreeAgent.
Please note:
- To check for HMRC tax coding and student loan change notices using FreeAgent, you need to enable electronic notifications for these notices in your HMRC business tax account.
- New notices from HMRC will need to be requested in FreeAgent. The HMRC notices area won’t currently update automatically once a notice has been released by HMRC.
- You’ll need full (level 8) access to FreeAgent to request HMRC notices.
- If you are managed by an accountant who is a FreeAgent partner, you can request notices yourself, or your accountant can do it for you.
How to request HMRC notices
Navigate to the ‘My Money’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Payroll’ from the drop-down menu.
Select the ‘Check HMRC notices’ button.
Select ‘See your latest HMRC notices’.
Enter your Government Gateway login details and select 'Request notices'. FreeAgent will then securely fetch your latest updates from HMRC.
This will then take you to the HMRC notices area. Here you’ll be able to view any available notices from HMRC, such as changes to tax codes and student loan payments.
When you make your first request, FreeAgent will only retrieve the latest notice for each employee if there is a discrepancy between their current tax code or student loan status and the notice details. For any later requests, FreeAgent will retrieve all new notices issued after the date of the first request. If you have already updated an employee's payroll profile for a change of tax code, you can remove a notice to clear it from the 'For approval' list.
To check again for any new notices from HMRC at a later date, you can select the ‘Request HMRC Notices’ button.
This will update the HMRC notices area with any new notices that HMRC has released for your employees since your last request. Please note that this area won’t currently update automatically with new notices from HMRC, so it’s important to check via this button regularly to make sure you have the latest notices from HMRC before filing your payroll.
Read more about how to approve or remove HMRC notices.
Reasons why notices are unable to be retrieved
There are several reasons why notice changes may be unable to be retrieved from HMRC. For example:
-
Electronic notifications for tax code and student loan notices haven’t been enabled in your HMRC business tax account. Only notices issued after you update these settings will be pulled through to FreeAgent, and it may take up to 72 hours for the changes to apply.
- HMRC does not recognise the Government Gateway credentials that you have entered.
Navigate to HMRC’s website to check if you can log in to your HMRC online account using the same Government Gateway credentials that you’re entering into FreeAgent. If you’re unable to log in, please see the following HMRC guidance.
- The ‘PAYE Reference’ and ‘Accounts Office reference’ numbers in FreeAgent don’t match the details in your business tax account.
- You’re an accountant and don’t have authorisation to file payroll on behalf of the client’s business.