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Tax Returns – There’s No Excuse

If you’re one of the 14,000 individuals who submitted their tax returns between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day then as long as you make any payments which are due by the end of January you can sit back and bask in the knowledge of a job well done. On the other hand, if you still have your tax return to do then make sure you don’t follow in the footsteps of the 870,000 people who last year had to pay a fine for submitting their return late.

One area which catches people out if they are filing their tax returns online for first time is the need to set up an online account. The process is fairly straightforward but it does rely on a unique code being sent by HMRC through the post; which means that those who leave it to the last minute are not going to be able to complete the process on time.

The government has issued a handy guide for those who aren’t sure whether they need to submit a tax return; but beware, if you do need to submit a return then HMRC are likely to look with disfavour on excuses such as failure of internet connection or lack of postal delivery. In fact, these were two of the top ten excuses from the previous tax return round which HMRC have recently revealed. Other excuses which they turned aside included “a wasp in my car caused me to have an accident and my tax return, which was inside, was destroyed” and the ever popular “my dog ate my tax return.”