As we predicted earlier this month, the HMRC computer system yesterday failed under the weight of traffic from those seeking to return their self assessment tax returns. This year, because of the nature of the failure the HMRC have taken the decision to extend the submission dead line by 24hrs until midnight tonight 01st February.

During the first week of December three large stock market listed companies announced plans to quit Britain and move there corporate headquarters either to Ireland or Luxembourg . These were, Henderson, an asset manager, Charter, an engineering company and Regus, the serviced offices provider . Another, Brit Insurance, in also understood to be ‚actively considering the issue of tax domicile“

A few weeks ago the revenue announced changes to the way tax overpayments would be treated. In a controversial move they have now placed a new limit on the length of time you have to claim any overpayments back. The limit, originally six years has now been reduced to four. This could potentially see millions of taxpayers who have made over overpayments loose and net the treasury hundreds of millions of pounds. The rules themselves smack of double standards as the rule changes leave HMRC's ability to go back six years intact.

After recent changes to deadline dates the paper based self assessment tax return deadline of 31st October is upon us and should be looming large in the minds of everybody who intendes submit a paper based return.

Today, the FT reports that figures from the National Audit Office indicate that one in three of Britain’s biggest businesses pay not tax.

Read the full article here A third of UK’s big business pays no tax

Introduction