From Monday (29 June) you will be able to appeal against fines for late CIS payments online.

The move follows changes made in December last year to the CIS (Construction Industry Scheme) tax regime for paying sub-contractors.

The new online HMRC Penalty Appeal Service (PAS) will be the quickest and easiest way to make an appeal against penalties for missing the deadline to file a CIS monthly return. But it is not compulsory and if you prefer you can continue to use the paper appeals service, at least for the time being.

To use the online service, you have to sign up to CIS through HMRC online. For those companies already registered, the Penalty Appeal Service will automatically appear on their CIS page. HMRC promises to deal promptly with online appeals. Only if the appeal is not accepted will it be referred to an HMRC Officer for further review.

To make an appeal via the online service, a company has to:

1. Log onto HMRC online services and select the CIS section of the website
2. Select ‘Appeal a Penalty’ to see a list of all the penalties that can be appealed which will show:

• Unique ID (shown on the penalty notice)
• Type of penalty
• Issue date (shown on the penalty notice)
• Tax (Return) period end date
• Amount of penalty

3. If there are no penalties to appeal, a message will appear stating: ‘You do not currently have any penalties that can be appealed’. Anyone that believes they have a penalty to appeal but the notice is not online will be able to either contact the CIS helpline or write to HMRC using the contact details on the penalty notice
4. To appeal a penalty, select the Unique ID as shown on the penalty notice that you wish to appeal and then follow the onscreen instructions
5. Once the appeal has been processed, a Generic Notice will be issued detailing the result of the appeal. It can be accessed by selecting ‘Generic Notices’ on the home screen.