Twenty years ago HMRC opened the online self assessment tax return filing facility. Today, to mark the fast approaching tax return deadline (January 31st), some interesting facts about tax returns have been released.
In the online tax return's first year of availability only 38,000 people used the service. This year it is estimated around 11 million self assessment tax returns will be filed online - that's out of a total 12.1 million returns requested - so only 1 million are being sent via paper by the earlier October 31st paper due date.
Around 100,000 very organised people filed their tax return on the first day of the current tax year, April 6th 2020 - ten months before the deadline! Contrast this to the final month, January, where near to 5 million tax returns are estimated to be filed.
It could be a busy Sunday this year as that's the day of the deadline for online filing - the last time the deadline day fell on a Sunday was five years ago in 2016. Last year saw 702,171 tax returns squeeze their way through HMRC's online pipes on the deadline day.
Most people filed between 4pm and 5pm on the deadline day last year, with the OK button pushed on around 56,969 tax returns.
At the moment 45 percent of tax returns are still outstanding and have less than two weeks to be submitted.
Remember that there is a time to pay payment plan available to spread any tax bill payment required.