It’s that time of year again. As you cross off each new day in the calendar you’re in one of two positions. Position 1) Feeling extremely smug that you got your tax return filed away weeks, or even months, ago. Or, position two, panicking and sweating profusely while on the phone to your accountant / 19-year old nephew with an A level in maths, while you try and work out just how much you can reasonably claim as work-related expenses.
It’s a tradition for many – leaving things to the last minute and not really preparing for the most admin-heavy day in any self-employed person’s year. There seems to be another tradition emerging in January though – the tradition of technical glitches on the HMRC site during its busiest and most crucial month.
Remember last year when the HMRC site went down on January 31st? The fault was so colossal that the taxman had to extend the filing deadline. Seeing as we’re still a whole week off this year’s deadline it remains to be seen whether the servers have been bumped up to cope with demand this time around, but instead we’ve got a new fault to contend with.
This week, people using the online filing system on the HMRC site were offered the option to ask for any tax owned for the last tax year to be paid via their PAYE tax code in 2009-10. The trouble is, the deadline for allowing this service passed on December 30, and the option is not supposed to appear on the site anymore.
HMRC was said to be investigating the issue ‘urgently’. Personally I’m looking forward to what the jinxed site has in store for us next year. A mistaken tax rebate perhaps?
