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Press release: HMRC move to issue late filing penalties earlier than expected

2 April, 2019

The Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) is alerting taxpayers that HMRC is starting to issue late filing penalties for self-assessment income tax returns this week. The penalty for missing the filing deadline of 31 January 2019 for a 2017/18 return is £100.

HMRC announced in February 2019 that, due to Brexit-related pressures, the issue of these notices would be delayed this year. The ATT raised concerns at the time about the delay1 as the £100 penalty notice is an important prompt to taxpayers that their return is outstanding. A delay in issuing this prompt also increases the risk of daily penalties. Daily penalties start to accrue at a rate of £10 per day if the return is still outstanding three months from the 31 January due date – i.e. from 1 May 2019.

Jon Stride, Co-Chair of the ATT’s Technical Steering Group, said:

“The ATT is pleased that HMRC have now started to issue penalty notices and have not delayed the exercise to the end of April, which was originally a possibility. However, it will take HMRC until 12 April 2019 to issue all the penalty letters. This gives taxpayers a little over two weeks to submit their return before the daily penalty regime commences.

“Anyone who has yet to file their 2017/18 tax return should do so as a matter of urgency. They will not be able to avoid the £100 penalty unless they have a reasonable excuse for being late, but getting the return filed online by no later than 30 April 2019 will mean that they will avoid the additional £10 per day.”