The Universal Credit Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016

Information for calculating earned income- real time information etc

62.—(1) Unless paragraph (2) applies, a person must provide such information for the purposes of calculating their earned income at such times as the Department may require.

(2) Where a person is, or has been, engaged in an employment in respect of which their employer is a Real Time Information employer—

(a) the amount of the person’s employed earnings from that employment for each assessment period is to be based on the information which is reported to HMRC under the PAYE Regulations and is received by the Department from HMRC in that assessment period,(1) and

(b) for an assessment period in which no information is received from HMRC, the amount of employed earnings in relation to that employment is to be taken to be nil.

(3) The Department may determine that paragraph (2) does not apply in respect of —

(a) a particular employment, where it considers that the information from the employer is unlikely to be sufficiently accurate or timely, or

(b) a particular assessment period where—

(i) no information is received from HMRC and the Department considers that this is likely to be because of a failure to report information (which includes the failure of a computer system operated by HMRC, the employer or any other person), or

(ii) where the Department considers that the information received from HMRC is incorrect or fails to reflect the definition of employed earnings in regulation 55, in some material respect.

(4) Where the Department determines that paragraph (2) does not apply, it must make a decision as to the amount of the person’s employed earnings for the assessment period in accordance with regulation 55 (employed earnings) using such information or evidence as it thinks fit.

(5) When the Department makes a decision in accordance with paragraph (4) it may—

(a) treat a payment of employed earnings received by the person in one assessment period as received in a later assessment period (for example where the Department has received information in that later period or would, if paragraph (2) applied, have expected to receive information about that payment from HMRC in that later period), or

(b) where a payment of employed earnings has been taken into account in that decision, disregard information about the same payment which is received from HMRC.

(6) Paragraph (5) also applies where the Department makes a decision under regulation 41(3) of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2016 in a case where the person disputes the information provided by HMRC.

(7) In this regulation “Real Time Information Employer” has the meaning in regulation 2A(1) of the PAYE Regulations(2)

(1)

See also regulation 41(1) of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decision and Appeals) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016 which provides for an alteration in the amount of employed earnings based on information from HMRC to be prescribed for the purposes of section 139D(1)(b)(vi) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. The effect of this is that the award may be adjusted without a decision by the Secretary of State (subject to the person having the right to request a decision by the Secretary of State where they dispute the information provided by HMRC).

(2)

Regulation 2A was inserted by regulation 4 of S.I. 2012/822.