Excuses, excuses!

What, exactly, is considered a reasonable excuse for just missing a filing deadline?

Under £100
If you miss the January 31st deadline for filing your personal tax return there’s a fixed rate penalty of £100. However, if the amount of tax outstanding is less then £100, the penalty can only be issued for that amount. I.e. you have £80 outstanding, then the taxman can only issue a £80 fine, if you owe nothing, then the maximum penalty is also zero. The taxman can of course get away with this unless you appeal against the £100 penalty within the 30days allocated to do so.

Over £100
‘It was my intention to deliver on time, but unforeseen circumstances prevented this.’ Has won many cases for the taxpayer and thus negated the penalty.

One man managed to negate the penalty after delivering his tax return on the 2nd February, his accountant was to place it in their letterbox on the first working day after the 31st of January (in this case 2nd February). However he was unable to get there in time for them opening the box at 7:30am due to unforeseen circumstances and it was handed in at 10:30am instead. Luckily, as he had the reasonable excuse of having the intention for the return to be there when the letter box was opened, and only failing to do so because of unforeseen circumstances, the penalty was negated.

Advisors
Advisors can also use a similar excuse, if they stockpile their clients’ returns to the end of the month, and then, due to unforeseen circumstances, such as mechanical breakdowns, software faults or staff absences, the returns were not submitted until the beginning of February. Then, once again, the excuse can be invoked.

Summary
Basically, challenge any penalty raise, with one simple excuse – it was your intention to deliver it on time.