When asked by the Tax Faculty, ICAEW members in practice identify access to liability and payments data in clients’ PAYE for employers online accounts as a top priority.

HMRC introduced a private beta service with this functionality in 2016, but to date it has been limited to agents with fewer than 200 employer clients and fewer than 200 self assessment clients and fwer than 200 corporation tax clients and fewer than 200 VAT clients on the one set of agent credentials.

All agents are able to file employer forms and returns and view their PAYE for employers’ client list, tax codes, student loan and other notices in their Agent Online Services (AOS) account.

The pilot service (previously called AOSS) also allows agents to view employer liabilities and payments and HMRC is trialling webchat which can be accessed from the liabilities and payments pages. These additional features are only available to agents where they have been authorised by the client through the online service.

The private beta pilot is being extended and an additional 6,000 agents have already been invited into the service. From 23 August 2021 most agents with up to 500 employer clients will be invited to join the service when they sign into their AOS.

The Tax Faculty understands that there is a limit on the number of agents that will be invited each day.

Feedback from Tax Faculty members that already have access to the private beta service has been positive.

The Tax Faculty understands that, following an upgrade to the system, the data displayed to agents will now be exactly the same as that displayed to employers in their business tax account.