Business News

September 2010

Three-Quarters Of Taxpayers Opt For Online Returns

As the 31 October deadline looms for paper tax returns, new figures from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) reveal that growing numbers of individual taxpayers are opting for online filing.

The figures show that in 2009-2010, 74 per cent of self assessment tax returns were filed online, a total of 6.6 million out of 8.9 million returns.

The figure has more than trebled since 2005-06, when only 23 per cent of the self assessment total – just over two million returns – were filed online.

The HMRC statistics also reveal that although corporation tax must be filed online from 1 April 2011, only 27 per cent of businesses – 424,912 out of a total of 1,582,799 making returns – filed in this way in 2009-2010.

The figure is still a substantial increase on 2005-2006, when just two per cent of businesses filed online.

For those opting for online filing instead of paper returns, the deadline is midnight on 31 January 2011 or by 30 December 2010 if less than £2,000 in tax is owned and the taxpayer wants HMRC to collect it by amending their PAYE tax code next year.

LINKS: Tax return deadlines