Online filing - 8 out of 10 employers prefer it

Over eighty per cent of employers have filed their end-of-year returns online - an increase of around 10% compared to last year.

Mike Shipp, HMRC Director PAYE, SA and NICs said: "I'm delighted that so many employers have successfully filed online. We were determined to make the experience as customer friendly as possible and these figures suggest we've gone a long way to achieving this. I'm immensely grateful to those employers and their representatives who have given us their views of the service. This feedback has been invaluable in enabling us to provide the quality of on-line service to which our employer customers are entitled.

"We will continue to encourage smaller employers to file online by listening to their requirements, and meeting those requirements whenever we can and I hope those small employers who file using the traditional media are encouraged to make the switch to online services."

Of a total of 1.6m returns received, around 1.4m (87%) were received online. There was also a 23% increase in the number of P14 Returns successfully filed compared to the same time last year. Almost 60m P14s were received. 70% of these have already been posted successfully to NIRS (National Insurance Recording System).