Altus

The introduction of the Saving Gateway was announced by the Government in the 2008 budget and is intended to encourage people on low incomes to save.  The first accounts will be available to savers in 2010 and each pound saved will be matched by a contribution from the Government.

The Government has now outlined the responsibilities of product providers who want to offer the new accounts. A key part is the submission of monthly returns to HMRC detailing new account openings, account closures and the match payments made. The last of these will serve to claim back match payments from HMRC.

The level of detail required in these returns will result in the exchange of significant volumes of data with HMRC. As with the introduction of the Child Trust Fund in 2004, HMRC has mandated the use of electronic filing via the Government Gateway from the outset. The summary of responses to the original operating proposals published in December 2008 reveals that many providers are concerned by the level of technology investment required.

At Altus we believe that e-filing is a problem that only needs solving once. The Altus e-filing Gateway supports a range of reporting regimes and is available as a secure hosted service. This provides our clients with a consistent and cost-effective way of handling all returns to HMRC and the means to easily adapt to new reporting requirements. As soon as the relevant technical packs are published by HMRC we will be adding support for Saving Gateway returns to our product.

For more information see our product range.