Expert Opinion: Don’t miss the deadline for your tax return

The deadline for tax returns to be filed is looming, and anyone failing to meet it faces a penalty.

Tax returns for the year 2015/16 must be filed online by midnight on January 31 – it is already too late to submit a paper version. And beware: any submitted later will incur an automatic £100 penalty, even if there is no tax to pay or any tax due has been paid.

Not surprisingly, the longer the delay, the heavier the penalty:

• after three months, additional daily penalties of £10 per day, up to a maximum of £900
• after six months, a further penalty of five percent of the tax due or £300, whichever is greater
• after 12 months, another five percent or £300 charge, whichever is greater.

There are also additional penalties for paying late of five percent of the tax unpaid at 30 days, six months and 12 months.

HMRC says it will be lenient for those who have a genuine reason for submitting a return late.

However, none of the following excuses were allowed:

• My tax return was on my yacht, which caught fire.
• A wasp in my car caused me to have an accident and my tax return, which was inside, was destroyed.
• My wife helps me with my tax return, but she had a headache for ten days.
• My dog ate my tax return … and all of the reminders.
• I couldn’t complete my tax return, because my husband left me and took our accountant with him. I am currently trying to find a new accountant.
• My child scribbled all over the tax return, so I wasn’t able to send it back.
• I work for myself, but a colleague borrowed my tax return to photocopy it and lost it.
• My husband told me the deadline was March 31 .
• My internet connection failed.
• The postman doesn’t deliver to my house.

Richard Mathews is group finance director at Regulatory Finance Solutions http://www.regaccounting.co.uk