Taxation

ICAEW welcomes extended self-assessment deadline as HMRC site goes down

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) has urged HMRC to properly investigate the failure of its online self-assessment website with the site being down for part of today – deadline day. The crucial collapse comes at a time when more and more people are being encouraged to file online.

Paul Aplin, Chairman of the Tax Faculty at the ICAEW, said:

“Many people leave it until deadline day to file their self-assessment return but they rightly expect that the online system should work on this most important of days. They should not be punished by a fine if the system fails and I therefore welcome HMRC’s decision to extend the deadline by 24 hours. The reasons for this failure need to be investigated and the lessons learned so that there is no repetition of this in the future.”

Although 31 January is the statutory filing date, a late return may not attract a penalty. The filing rules in full are:

Thursday 31 January 2008:

• Tax returns received by HMRC up to midnight are on time. This applies both to returns filed electronically and to paper returns sent in the post or hand-delivered.

• In addition, for paper tax returns put through the letterbox before the tax office is opened first thing on Friday morning, HMRC will assume the return was delivered by midnight on 31 January.

Friday 1 February 2008:

• Tax returns received up to midnight, whether electronically, in the post or hand-delivered, are late but will not incur a late filing penalty.

• This includes tax returns put through tax office letter boxes before the office is next opened – HMRC will assume the return was filed before midnight on 1 February.

• Because the return is late, filing on 1 February will have the effect of extending the enquiry window, so that HMRC has until 30 April 2009 rather than 31 January 2009 to open an enquiry into the return. We hope that HMRC’s announcement about the extension of the deadline will mean that the deadline for enquiring into returns submitted on 1 February 2008 will be brought forward to 31 January 2009.

Saturday 2 February 2008:

• Returns delivered from 2 February onwards are late and will incur a penalty.

The £100 is just the first of a series of penalties which will clock up for returns which continue to be overdue. The next one is another £100 if the return is still not filed by 31 July 2008.