An estimated 1.1 million customers will have to pay at least £100 to the Treasury in late fees even if their tax is paid on time or there is no tax to pay.
For those who send their tax return three months late, an additional £100 daily charge is added to your bill up to a maximum of £900 (90 days).
If you have not paid after six months, a charge of 5% of your owed tax or £300 (whichever is greater) is applied. Should you not submit your return after 12 months, another 5% of the tax owed is charged, or £300.
There were 11-and-a-half million tax returns submitted to HMRC by the deadline, with 97% completed online and 304,000 filed with paper forms. Those include late submissions from previous tax years.
For the 2023/24 tax year, HMRC received 10.9 million expected returns from self-employed workers before 31 January and 732,498 on the day of the deadline.
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The most common time was between 4pm and 5pm, when 58,517 submitted their earnings and deductions for the year, while 31,442 completed their returns in the last hour before the 11.59pm cut-off point.
‘£110m for taxman’
Charlene Young, AJ Bell’s pensions and savings expert, said: “HMRC estimates that 1.1 million people failed to file by the deadline, risking £100 late filing penalties, a potential windfall for the tax man of £110m. Many people would have failed to realise they need to file an assessment at all and the £100 late fee applies even if there is no tax to pay.
“Along with the late penalty, daily interest will start to accrue based on an annual rate of 7.25% on any tax owed. Anything for 2023-24 still left unpaid by 1 March could suffer an extra 5% penalty charge. These percentage charges apply to unpaid tax due last year, not payments on account due for the coming year.
“After Barclays suffered a systems-wide outage on Friday 31 January, some taxpayers who held on to their cash until the last minute or were waiting for payday could have found they were unable to send money. HMRC is said to be working with Barclays and reassured those genuinely affected will be able to appeal any late payment fines through the usual channels.”
Young added: “If you don’t have an excuse to appeal a fine but still owe money, get in touch with HMRC as soon as you can, as you might still be able to set up a payment plan to get back on track.
“If you’re up to date with HMRC and already thinking about tax to pay for 2024-25, you can apply for a budgeting plan to help pay regularly towards your bill, or if you make payments on account, you can request to reduce them if your earnings are likely to be significantly lower than before.”
