What a P45 is
A P45 is the leaving certificate an employer gives a departing employee. It records:
- The employee's details and their date of leaving.
- Their year-to-date gross emoluments up to that date.
- The statutory deductions taken in the year so far — PAYE, NIS, NHT and Education Tax.
It lets the employee — and their next employer — continue the year's tax position correctly instead of starting from scratch.
How to produce one
Run the final pay
Process the employee's last pay period — including any outstanding pay or a redundancy payment — so their year-to-date totals are complete. (See the redundancy guide if it applies.)
Open the P45 in Brawta
Go to Returns and choose P45 for that employee. Brawta fills the figures from their pay history — you don't re-key anything.
Check the leaving date & totals
Confirm the date of leaving and that the year-to-date emoluments and deductions look right.
Give the employee their copy
Generate the P45 on the official TAJ form and hand the leaver their copy. Keep one for your records.
This is a separate obligation from filing, and it has not gone away. The P45 you give the employee is what they hand their next employer so their tax carries over correctly. Filing it with TAJ does not discharge it, and TAJ filing it online does not either.
File the P45 information online
P45 information is submitted through TAJ eServices, on your PAYE account. Only current employers — or those who were employers at some point in the current year — can submit.
You then choose how to provide the leaver details:
- Manual entry — key the leaver in. For several at once, use Add a Record on the P45 table before moving on.
- Excel Upload — choose your file and click Import. Brawta builds this .xlsx in TAJ's own upload-template layout.
Review what came in, tick the declaration, and submit.
If you left the deductions blank, the portal stops you with an alert rather than accepting it — you either enter the deductions or confirm there were none. Worth knowing before you assume a quiet screen means it went through.
TAJ publishes its own step-by-step with screenshots at jamaicatax.gov.jm → How To… → How to Submit Employee(s) P45.
Common questions
- Redundancy? Process the redundancy payment in the final pay — the tax-free portion is handled separately. See redundancy pay in Jamaica.
- Keep a copy. Retain the P45 with your payroll records in case of a later query.
- Confirm the process. Always check the current P45 requirements with TAJ.
The P45 as Brawta produces it: the TAJ upload file, and the copy you hand the leaver. Click to open it in the demo.
A correct P45 in a couple of clicks.
Run the final pay and Brawta fills the official P45 from the employee's history — accurate, on the right form, private on your machine. Free to try.