Tax Return Deadlines And Late Return Penalties

[Mick Dundee]

31 October: Paper returns

If you are sent a notice to complete a tax return before or on 31 July and you want to send us a paper return you must send the completed return back by 31 October.

If you are sent a notice to complete a tax return after 31 July you must send the completed paper tax return back by the later of 31 October or three months following the date of issue of the notice.

For paper returns that reach us by this date we will:

calculate your tax for you (though you can calculate it for yourself if you want)

tell you what to pay by the following 31 January

collect tax through your tax code (if possible) where you owe less than £2,000 unless you tell us otherwise.

If the paper return arrives after this deadline you'll be charged an automatic £100 penalty.

(Late Partnership returns attract a £100 penalty for each partner. Late Trust and Estate returns result in a £100 charge to the trust or estate.)

(There are a very few cases where online tax returns can't be made. In these cases the deadline by which the paper return must reach us is 31 January. See 'Deadlines for tax returns that can't be sent online' below.)

30 December: Online returns (for tax to be collected through your tax code)

If you send us your tax return online you must send it back by this date if you want us to collect tax through your tax code (if possible) where you owe less than £2,000. Otherwise you can send it to us up to 31 January.

31 January: Online returns

Where a paper tax return or a notice to complete a tax return is issued before 31 July this is the deadline for sending back an online tax return.

Where a paper tax return or a notice to file a tax return is issued after 31 July the deadline for online filing is the later of three months following the date of issue of the return or 31 January following the end of the year of assessment.

If it arrives after this deadline you'll be charged an automatic £100 penalty.

(This is also the deadline for paper returns where there isn't the option to file the return online. See 'Deadlines for tax returns that can't be sent online' below.)

(Late Partnership returns attract a £100 penalty for each partner. Late Trust and Estate returns result in a £100 charge to the trust or estate.)

Acknowledging the receipt of a tax return

Receipts are not provided for paper tax returns. If you file online you'll get an immediate, on-screen acknowledgment that we've received your return.

Self Assessment payment deadlines and late payment penalties

31 January

If you were sent a notice to complete a tax return by the previous 31 October, then you must pay us any balance of any tax you owe by 31 January. This is referred to as the 'balancing payment'. We will charge you daily interest after this date, until we receive your payment.

This is also the date by which you may be asked to make any first 'payment on account' for the current tax year. For example, on 31 January 2009 you may have to pay both of the following:

the balance of tax owing for the year 2007-08; and

the first 'payment on account' for 2008-09

28 February

If you still haven't paid the balancing payment due by 31 January, you'll be charged an automatic 5 per cent surcharge on top of the amount still owing. This is in addition to any interest payments.

31 July

If you are due to make payments on account, this is the deadline for making a second 'payment on account' for tax owing for the preceding tax year.

If you still owe tax that you were due to pay by the previous 31 January, you'll be charged a second automatic 5 per cent surcharge on top of the amount you owe.

Tax returns received after 31 October

If you received your tax return (or Notice to file if you file online) after 31 October, you must complete and return it to us within three months of the date of the receipt. As a rule you have 30 days from the date on the request for payment (called the 'Self Assessment Statement').

Payments on account and when you can ask for them to be adjusted

You'll be asked to make two 'payments on account' for the current tax year if the total tax due in the previous tax year is less than 80 per cent of the tax deducted at source through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system and your Self Assessment tax bill for the previous year was over £500 (£1000 from 6 April 2009 - tax year 2009-10). Each payment on account equals one half of the previous year's tax liability.

If you expect your income for the current year to be significantly different from the previous year you can ask for these payments to be adjusted.

Payments on account and the Self Assessment Statement - learn more

Deadlines for tax returns that can't be sent online

There are a very few cases where online returns can't yet be made - for example if you are making a non-resident company landlord return. In these cases the paper tax return must be delivered to HMRC by the later of 31 January or three months after the date of issue of the tax return.

Find out more about which returns can and can't be made online

If your tax return is late and we think you have not paid enough tax on time we can estimate the amount of tax we think you should pay. We call this a 'determination' of tax due. You can only update this determination by sending in your completed tax return. You may also be liable to penalties and surcharges.

[porca misèria]

Hmm. Do you have the ear of whoever is responsible for your online system? You really should fix it to stop misleading your users. The prospect of having to argue with you over a payment you insist you've made but I haven't received was frightening.

• If it tells me a repayment has been issued to me, I should be expecting a payment within bank-payment timescales, and certainly not more than a week.
  
• If the payment is not on the way, it should say pending instead of issued.
  

http://bahumbug.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/t...misinformation/

Having made some efforts last year to keep my tax liability down, I submitted my tax return (online) on May 6^th. And recollecting last year, when nothing happened after submitting it until I returned to the system and asked for a rebate, this time I tried to ask for it straight away.

At first, it told me there was no rebate. OK, I guess it wasn’t yet in the relevant part of the system, a theory supported by its absence from the historical list of my tax returns. So I asked about it using their “ask us a question†form, which promises a reply within 48 hours.

After a couple of returns to the HMRC site, it appeared in the historical list earlier this week, and was also showing a refund had been sent on May 6^th (the day I submitted). Great! So it’ll be in the bank account sometime this week, right?

Nope, no sign of it, nor any reply to my message a full week after the 48 hours. So today I tried phoning them. Was rather hoarse with a mild lurgy, but wanted to find out what was going on, and dreading what might happen if they insisted they’d paid it – as stated – on May 6^th.

After spending a long time going through a menu of options with a long pause at each option, I eventually spoke to a lady. A barrage of security questions later – anyone listening in is now fully equipped to impersonate me – and she looked up my details. Apparently it’s been selected for some kind of security investigation, whatever that may mean. OK, kind-of nice to hear some kind of checks exist (at least for those of us who are neither bankers nor MPs), but I can’t see how they’d check up on most of it without asking me, which they haven’t done.

But this is where it starts to feel Kafkaesque. Could she give me any kind of ballpark figure for how long I can expect to wait? Nope, she stonewalled with a most infuriatingly meaningless when it’s issued. I tried different units – days? weeks? months? Within your or my lifetime? – but she was absolutely not going to be any more specific. And when confronted with why the website had told me wrongly that the rebate had been sent, and why they never replied to my message, she pleaded ignorance. OK that last one is credible, but infuriating when you’re talking to what is supposed to be the contact for it.

I did just get one piece of information from her: a (postal) address for complaints. That came only after I’d assured her my complaint wasn’t about her personally, and that I wasn’t going to ask her name.

OK, I can take the delay: it’s annoying, but that’s life. But I really do get seriously pissed off at the misinformation and stonewalling. The bloody system shouldn’t tell me it’s been paid when it hasn’t, and they should answer questions within the promised 48 hours.

Grrrrrr …..

On a philosophical note, I regard it as my strong duty to humanity and to my country to ensure my money goes to better places than HM treasury.

[Tonkers]

More and more people are going to opt out of the system, of that, be sure.