Self Assessment Late Filing Penalties deferred

HMRC announced recently that it was deferring the imposition of late filing penalties for Self Assessment Tax Returns to the 28th February this year. Effectively, they have extended the filing deadline by a month, for the second year.

They have also included late payment in this waiver, which means there will be no penalty if your personal Tax Payment isn’t made until the 1st April.

You need to be careful here though!

HMRC are not going to impose £100 late filing penalties but they WILL charge interest on any tax amounts that aren’t paid by the 1st February 2022, as normal.

Bear in mind their interest rate has just gone up too.

The background

The Accounting industry were calling for the filing deadline to be pushed back, as many firms have been struggling with staff shortages caused by the pandemic.

Several industry experts have highlighted the number of returns still to be filed, and claimed that HMRC have shifted the deadline to avoid a tsunami of Coronavirus-related penalty appeals later.

Current statistics show 6.5 million Returns have been submitted so far, with 12.2 million still to be filed. The cost and time required to deal with anywhere near that number of appeals would be enormous.

Our recommendation?

If you haven’t yet completed your Return, don’t delay – get it done!

You still need to make your payment by the 1st February, and to do that with any certainty you need to have prepared your Return.

The majority of our client returns have already been submitted, so if you need help with yours, please get in touch.