Midnight on January 31 is the deadline for people to fill in their Self-Assessment tax returns online but around 1.5 million people in the UK have still not done so.
Self-assessment forms are primarily for the self-employed and people with more than one source of income. However, for the first time, this year parents receiving child benefit must also register and, as of now, some 100,000 have yet to do so.
Under new rules, families with one parent with a taxable income of more than £50,000, who continued to receive child benefit after January 2013, must pay some of that back in a tax charge, while if one parent has a taxable income of more than £60,000, then they must pay it all back.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) says that it has done all it can to ensure that parents who have never had to register for self-assessment before get their return in on time and, since 90 per cent of the parents who fall into the self-assessment category have registered, the taxman feels he has done a good job.
However, most people who do not register in time face a £100 penalty plus interest from tomorrow (February 1), while anyone who fails to register at all could be fined on a case-by-case basis, under what is known as a “failure to notify” penalty.
The penalties continue to rack up over the coming year but, there is a glimmer of hope for those registering for the first time, as people who realised after January 21 that they won’t get their user ID, password and activation code in time have until February 15 to file their return.
The extension is also available to those who have forgotten their ID and password and applied for a new one since midnight on January 21. However, people who have not yet registered with HMRC as having to complete a tax return and don’t have a unique tax reference number will not get the extension.
