Over 1 million people in the UK face impending £100 fines

03 February 2025 , 19:20

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Over 1 million people in the UK face impending £100 fines

Self-employed people have just missed an important tax deadline.

For those workers who file self-assessment tax returns, the deadline to submit the return and pay any tax owed was midnight on Friday, January 31.

HMRC says more than 11.5million people filed their return on time this year – including about 31,000 who left it until the last minute and filed in the last hour before midnight – but there are still about 1.1million people out there who missed the deadline.

Those people are now facing a £100 fine for submitting their self-assessment tax return late.

But it’s hoped that any self-employed workers who were unable to submit their return due to the Barclays outage this weekend will be able to appeal that fine if they were genuinely impacted.

Charlene Young, a pensions and savings expert at AJ Bell, said: ‘HMRC estimates that 1.1million people failed to file by the deadline risking £100 late filing penalties, a potential windfall for the taxman of £110million.

You’ll still be fined for filing late even if you didn’t have any tax to pay (Picture: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

‘After Barclays suffered a systems-wide outage on Friday January 31, some taxpayers who held on to their cash until the last minute or were waiting for payday could have found they were unable to send money.

‘HMRC is said to be working with Barclays and reassured those genuinely affected will be able to appeal any late payment fines through the usual channels.’

HMRC is now urging anyone who missed Friday’s deadline to submit their return as soon as possible.

Paying via the HMRC app is one of the quickest way to pay any tax owed, it said, but if unable to pay off the full tax bill straight away it could be possible to set up ‘time to pay’ arrangements’.

Penalties for missing the deadline include an initial £100 fixed penalty, which applies even if there is no tax to pay, or if the tax due is paid on time.

The initial penalty can be followed by, after three months, additional daily penalties of £10 per day, up to a maximum of £900.

After six months, there could be a further penalty of 5% of the tax due or £300, whichever is higher, and after 12 months another 5% or £300 charge, whichever is greater.

There are also additional penalties for paying late – 5% of the tax unpaid at 30 days, six months and 12 months – with interest charged on any tax paid late.

James Smith