One month’s grace for late tax return penalties! BUT…

 

Funny how this hasn’t been made public in the radio ads campaign, BUT…

in a shock move, HMRC have shown a more human face and announced that their usual strident late submission fines for self assessments submitted after the 31st January deadline have been suspended for a calendar month til 28th Feb!

What does this mean in practice?

The initial late filing penalty of £100 will not be charged, as long as the tax return is filed online by 28 February 2021.

However, this is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card as if you’ve got tax to pay, and you’ve submitted late, you will still need to pay your self-assessment tax bill by 31 January 2021 to avoid being charged late payment interest. Interest will be charged from 1 February on any outstanding liabilities at a rate of 2.6% per annum.

So you COULD submit late if that is unavoidable, but if you’ve got tax to pay then please do yourself a favour and either pay it, or arrange a ‘time to pay’ option. If this is of interest, please click here for our latest post about the tax deferral and payment options.

If you’ve got any questions, please email David@theaccountancypractice.com

If you’d rather not take our word for it (!!!) here’s the link to the HMRC site! You’re welcome!