Following feedback from agents that they needed to be able to view PAYE liabilities and payments on behalf of their employer clients, HMRC is building an initial service for testing that will show agents what a client owes and what has been paid.

The service will gradually be open to more agents and eventually all agents who want to will be able to access the new service.

In the HMRC blog, the Revenue says it wants to be sure that that when the new AOSS service is fully implemented, the information is close to 100% correct.

To achieve this, HMRC plans to ask agents who wish to access their employer PAYE clients’ liabilities and payments to confirm that they act for the clients HMRC think they represent.

HMRC acknowledges that this can present a challenge for some firms and has provided assurance that it will work to determine the best way to ensure that accurate and complete information transfers to the new service with the minimum disruption to business.

In addition, following feedback that initial proposals for verifying agents’ firms (identity assurance for organisations) were too time consuming, HMRC now plans to allow agents to use their existing Government Gateway credentials to log onto AOSS and use the new service.

HMRC will also be talking to third party software developers about how their products could support and complement AOSS.

More details are available at https://taxagents.blog.gov.uk/2014/10/30/agent-online-self-serve/