There have been calls from Accounting Bodies to push back Friday’s deadline for Self Assessment returns because nearly 2 million tax payers have not yet filed their returns.
It was reported on Your Money .Com
Chas Roy-Chowdhury, ACCA head of taxation, said: “HMRC has a common-sense decision to make. Either it can stick to the deadline and penalise all those families and self-employed people who are struggling to get to grips with the self-assessment process, or it can do the right thing and give them a lifeline by extending the deadline. Self-assessment is not easy and there are fines starting at £100 for missing the deadline even if you don’t owe any tax.
“The circumstances around this year’s deadline are different in that there will be a high number of people who will never have done self-assessment in their lives. They are going to miss the deadline not because they have been putting it off, but because they are newcomers. If reports are to be believed that 2 million have yet to meet the deadline just two days before it closes, then it is likely a lot of people will miss it.”
The reason why there are so many newcomers this year is because of changes to Child Benefit and an increase in the number of those self employed.
So should HMRC extend the deadline?
steve@bicknells.net
Simple answer: no! Three reasons: 1. the 2m figure is a classic piece of hype: we don’t know the source or its reliability. Huge numbers of returns always flood in during the last few days; maybe this year is no different. Don’t leap to action on hyped figures. 2. New self-employed people may be behind this – but self-employment is all about taking responsibility. So don’t bail them out if they fail to do so. 3. Or maybe it’s higher rate taxpayers with child benefit. If so (a) they can afford to pay and (b) they should have opted to have it taxed at source. No sympathy!
Most certainly not! Erm, these 2million been aware of this deadline for 9months, they should have taken responsibility earlier and got in a professional to help!