Experts Question UK Inland Revenue's Predicted Late Tax Payment Haul

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

19 February 2002

The UK Inland Revenue announced earlier this week that it expects to collect around £80 million in fines from some 800,000 self-assessed taxpayers who failed to file their returns in time.

However, tax experts believe that the Revenue Department may have miscalculated, and that the inflated estimates may be due to tax returns sent in error to people who do not earn enough to pay income tax, and to now-deceased taxpayers. (Which surely, even by the Inland Revenue's standards, must be a valid excuse for not filling in your tax return...!)

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, the Head of Taxation at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, explained that the tax authority has been beset by problems of recent times, including computer and office rationalisation difficulties, and a go-slow by Revenue staff.

'The combination of these problems means that the Revenue unecessarily sends out thousands of self-assessment returns for completion by people who do not qualify and they simply bin the forms,' he explained. 'Other taxpayers are now dead, but the Revenue has yet to catch up.'

Despite these concerns however, the UK tax authority appears to be pressing ahead with its campaign to vigorously pursue late filers, and has reportedly hired an additional 2,000 'revenue receivable managers' to target delinquent taxpayers.

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