What did you do on Christmas Eve?
OK, 2020 was a year like no other but were you beavering away filling in your tax return?
No? Well, over 20,000 self-employed people were. Plus, there was another 2,700 filing on Christmas Day according to HMRC!
Interestingly, the peak time on Christmas Day for completing those pesky tax returns was 14:00 to 14:59, with more than 200 customers pressing send on their online form.
Whether they were gearing up for the Queen’s speech or seeking aid in digesting the last of the brussels sprouts remains to be disclosed by the Treasury.
On a serious note though, it is interesting to see how close to the deadline people tend to leave filing their self-assessment, whatever their profession.
Earlier this week, Taxi-Point’s Perry Richardson wrote an insightful piece highlighting that over 5 million people are yet to complete their tax submission.
In it, Perry quotes Karl Khan, HMRC’s Interim Director General for Customer Services, who notes that it has been;
“a very difficult year for many” and that “HMRC is ready to offer support to those who are yet to file their returns or are worried about paying their tax bill, but they must act now so we can help before the deadline.”
Worrying stuff, especially when for a lot of small businesses, the simplified tax return is less than an hour’s work, in fact, we think it can be done in around 15 minutes, watch this space on that!
For help filing your self-assessment return and a guide to bookkeeping, including mileage and allowable expenses, visit our knowledge base.
Also, keep a lookout for our guide on how to file your tax return in just 15 minutes, we are recording a simple video walkthrough to help with this.
P.S. for those who have trouble getting off to sleep at night and might want the full stats, feast your eyes on this.
In total, 31,400 customers completed their 2019 to 2020 tax returns between 24 and 26 December:
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Christmas Eve: 20,200 tax returns were filed – the peak time for filing was 11:00 to 11:59 when 2,892 returns were received
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Christmas Day: 2,700 tax returns were filed – the peak time for filing was 14:00 to 14:59 when 214 returns were received
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Boxing Day: 8,500 tax returns were filed – the peak time for filing was 15:00 to 15:59 when 858 returns were received