Three million people in position to take advantage of HMRC COVID-related relief against late filing penalties

- 700,000 people still expected to risk penalties

- Advice if you are late with your self-assessment forms

untied, the UK’s personal tax app, today revealed that its figures project that three million people will not have filed their tax return by the end of this month, and therefore will benefit from HMRC’s COVID-related effective extension of the tax filing deadline.

On 6 January HMRC confirmed that there will be no penalties for those filing their tax returns by 28 February, a full month after the usual formal cut-off of 31 January. Payments are due by 1 April to avoid a 5% late payment penalty – a small amount of interest may be payable.

Twelve million people have to file a personal tax return each year. untied forecasts that nine million will have done so by the end of January. These figures are based on statistics* released to untied by HMRC under the Freedom of Information Act, adjusted for the revised effective deadlines.

untied also projects that nearly 700,000 people are still expected to miss the 28 February cut-off and will receive a penalty of £100.

Advice to late filers:

• Try your hardest to get your tax return in ahead of the current deadline, and avoid the possibility of interest payments
• Even if you miss the deadline, still try to get your return submitted as soon as you can
• If you don’t have all information to hand, include provisional numbers and file an amendment later
• If you’re struggling to pay your tax bill, don’t ignore it -contact HMRC as soon as you can, to see if they can set up a payment plan - but be aware they’ll normally expect your tax returns to be up to date before discussing this.

Kevin Sefton, CEO of untied, the personal tax app, commented: “Even with the extra month, we believe that 700,000 people are in line to miss the filing deadline and will receive a £100 fine.

“HMRC has reported that it gets nearly 1,000 returns a day 14 months after the end of each annual deadline, and sometimes 500 a day 26 months after. The longer the delay in submitting the forms, the bigger the size of the penalties.

“We urge everyone to get any outstanding tax returns to HMRC as soon as possible and definitely before the end of February to avoid penalties. Taxes often feel overwhelming but the sooner you start, the better.”

untied has built a page for journalists to track and predict filings by date here: https://untied.io/keeping-count-press

There is also a public page of real time filing statistics - https://untied.io/keeping-count

—ENDS—

For more information contact pr@untied.io

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