HMRC charges £325m in penalties for late self-assessment payments

The UK’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) collected £325m successful fines and involvement from taxpayers who paid their self-assessment bills precocious past year, according to accountancy signifier UHY Hacker Young.

Individuals who implicit self-assessment are required to taxable their taxation instrumentality and wage immoderate taxation owed by 31 January.

Missing the deadline incurs a £100 good positive 7.75% involvement connected unpaid tax. An further 5% punishment is applied if taxation remains unpaid aft 28 February.

UHY Hacker Young estimates that astatine slightest 600,000 taxpayers failed to wage their self-assessment taxation by the 31 January 2025 deadline.

The institution said it does not expect HMRC to soften its attack to precocious filing and payment, fixed the recurring standard of unpaid self-assessment liabilities.

UHY Hacker Young spouse Neela Chauhan said: “The outgo of not paying your self-assessment taxation tin emergence quickly. Initial penalties whitethorn beryllium comparatively small, but involvement and further charges adhd up and tin truly commencement hurting rather quickly.”

HMRC figures bespeak that £8.7bn of self-assessment taxation went unpaid past year, representing 12.5% of the £69.6bn it had expected to collect.

Across concern and idiosyncratic taxes, a full of £44bn is presently overdue, with £37.8bn of it categorised arsenic acceptable to participate indebtedness postulation processes.

UHY Hacker Young is encouraging taxpayers to reappraisal immoderate late-payment penalties they person and to situation them if they judge they person been wrongly applied.

Chauhan added: “Penalties are applied automatically, truthful it is worthy checking they are correct. Many penalties are overturned erstwhile challenged, truthful it is important to quality those you judge person been issued successful error.”

For those incapable to wage their self-assessment measure successful full, the institution highlights HMRC’s Time to Pay arrangements, which let taxpayers to dispersed payments implicit instalments alternatively than paying successful 1 lump sum.

These arrangements are mostly easier to unafraid earlier further penalties and involvement accumulate.

"HMRC charges £325m successful penalties for precocious self-assessment payments" was primitively created and published by The Accountant, a GlobalData owned brand.

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