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The final date for self assessment (SA) tax returns has been extended to 2 February, as thousands of HMRC call centre employees prepare to stay away from work on the traditional deadline day.
While 31 January remains the official cut-off point, individuals and businesses will have an extra 48 hours in which to submit their documents online without risk of incurring a late-filing penalty. The enquiry window for those who file on the 1st or 2nd will be the same as if they had made their submission by the 31st in regular circumstances.
The change of date follows the announcement earlier this month that around 20,000 Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) members at the Revenue are set to strike on 31 January, in protest at the department’s plan to allow two of its call centres to be run by private firms in a year’s trial.
Talks between government officials and the PCS are ongoing, but a settlement looks unlikely: the union insists it will call off its action only if HMRC withdraws its offer of business to the companies Sitel and Teleperformance.
There had been concern among Revenue bosses that SA taxpayers in urgent need of assistance in filing their returns on 31 January would find they were unable to get through on the department’s helpline as a result of understaffing. In 2011, around 100,000 of the 600,000 who filed on 31 January contacted the taxman by phone on the day.
The Exchequer secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, claimed the strike would ‘have caused thousands of people to incur fines’ had HMRC not ‘taken this commonsense approach’ of giving SA taxpayers two days’ grace.
