Fines are on the way for late payers

Paymaster General Dawn Primarolo told the House of Commons that 8,371,251 Tax returns were received by the deadline, out of 9,246,131 issued.

Taxpayers that failed to meet the deadline face paying an automatic �100 fine, which could generate �90m for the Revenue.

The number of returns filed online by individuals, excluding those sent by accountants, rose by 75,000 in the 2000/01 tax year rose to more than 300,000 this year.

Further penalties

Taxpayers risk paying a surcharge of 5% on the outstanding balance if, having missed the 31 January date, they miss a 28 February deadline too.

Self-assessment forms received by the Inland Revenue late will be open to a full investigation by the taxman for up to 15 months.

The normal enquiry period for forms filed between September and the end of January is only 12 months.

The numbers of self assessment taxpayers filing their forms online has substantially increased.

According to Ms Primarolo, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of people who deal with their own tax affairs filing over the net.

But the majority of those filing online are professional accountants. The public are still taking their time to switch to online processing.

System glitches

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

The revenue's target for online filing is 50% of its 9 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.