The Inland Revenue's online tax return filing system is growing in popularity, despite a number of glitches last year.

According to figures released by the department, there has been a surge in people who deal with their own tax affairs filing over the net.

There has also been an increase in accountants submitting their clients' tax returns online, although this figure was less significant.

While the Revenue is celebrating and calling it a "mammoth increase", take-up is still way off its eventual target rate.

'Mammoth increase'

In 2002, just 76,287 people filed their tax return online.

This year the number has risen substantially to 324,710.

While the number of accountants who filed their clients' returns online increased slightly, from 343,009 to 364,625.

A spokesman for the Revenue told BBC News Online: "We are delighted about the increase."

He added: "There's been a mammoth increase between last year and this year and we are obviously hoping for a similar increase."

Targets

By 2005, the government aims to have all of its services available online.

The Revenue's target for online filing is 50% of its nine million self assessment customers by 2005.

The system has not been without its glitches.

In the run up to last year's 30 September deadline the system was blocking people from filing online at certain times of the day - and the Revenue advised people not to use the service between 7pm and 11pm.

One advantage of filing online is that the system calculates your tax for you.