It’s Tax Return Time!

It’s the time of year again that business owners and the self-employed know all too well. It’s tax return season!

Despite being a time of year when many choose to wind down and relax, HMRC revealed that on Christmas Eve 19,802 self-assessment tax returns were filed, with the peak filing time being late morning at 11:00-11:59. They also saw 2,828 returns filed on Christmas Day itself, which was up from 2,700 in 2020.

Boxing Day also saw an increase in submissions, with 8,641 returns being filed, compared to 8,500 the previous year.

The overall figure for this period is very similar in both years, with 31,494 submissions in 2020. They are both significantly lower than Christmas 2019, which saw a 9% increase of 34,292 returns.

Business owners hit the ground running in 2022, with 14,231 self-assessment returns being filed on New Year’s Day.

As you have probably seen by now, the deadline for self-assessment online filing has been extended from 31st January 2022 to 28th February 2022, however, HMRC is urging people to still submit by the original deadline.

Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, has urged people to file their tax returns by the deadline: “Filling in a tax return won’t have been on many people’s to-do lists for Christmas, but please don’t leave it until the end of January either.”

CEO of United, Kevin Sefton, also commented on the upcoming deadline, stating that the release “is an important reminder to people to get their taxes sorted ahead of 31 January. We estimate that 5.67m people have yet to file, and 700,000 risk penalties by missing the deadline”.

You can read more about the extension here.