The Inland Revenue has given a 14-day extension to
people who experienced technical difficulties in submitting
self-assessment tax returns online before the 31 January
deadline.
Demand for the service running up to the deadline delayed the
Revenue’s attempts to send out validation to those filing tax
returns online. The Revenue admitted that those who failed the
validation might not have had time to rectify the return because of
the delay and waived the £100 late penalty in those
circumstances.
A spokeswoman for the Revenue said, "The systems were not
running as fast as usual because of the volume of traffic. Nine
million tax returns were issued in April. We would not be able to
say how many would choose to return online in the run-up to the
deadline."
The Revenue said that by 31 January the problems had been
resolved and it had records of all who had sent returns before
then. In the days leading up to the deadline it was receiving up to
30,000 returns each day. The spokeswoman could not say if there
would be an enquiry into the problems, or if the systems would be
upgraded before next year’s deadline.
