People who want to file their income tax returns online before tonight's midnight deadline are in trouble.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) confirmed that its self-assessment website went down sometime this morning, although they are working to restore the service.

"The system is temporarily unavailable and we are still working to restore services and apologise to people who are unable to file their returns," an HMRC representative told us.

However, although today is the last day for filing income tax returns and paying any tax due, with the deadline at midnight tonight, HMRC would not comment on any possiblities of extending the cut-off point.

"No decision has been made at the moment," HMRC told us at around 2.10pm today.

If HMRC cannot get the service back up and people are unable to file their returns, many face an automatic fine if more than £100 tax is owed. Figures from last year show that more than 900,000 taxpayers missed the 31 January deadline, although they did not all receive the automatic penalty.