Inland Revenue Admits To Delays In Self-Assessment E-mail Responses

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

03 February 2005

It has emerged that thousands of taxpayers have not been informed whether their attempts to file their tax returns were successful, because the Inland Revenue’s website struggled to cope with the high volume of tax returns filed in the run up to Monday’s deadline.

When taxpayers file their returns electronically with the Revenue, its website sends an acknowledgement email which explains that they are entitled to a fourteen-day grace period after the deadline has passed to refile and correct any mistakes.

However, it seems that thousands of e-filers have yet to receive these replies because the Revenue’s email response system was slowed down by the sheer number of taxpayers seeking to file returns at the last minute.

The Financial Times reported that around 5,000 self-assessment forms were being filed every hour through the Revenue’s website immediately prior to the January 31 deadline, although the department initially denied that its systems had struggled to cope with the weight of traffic.

A Revenue spokesman was quoted by the FT as observing that it would be “wholly wrong” to consider refiled returns as late, since it could take several days for the acknowledgement emails to arrive.

Taxpayers who missed the deadline face an automatic £100 fine.

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