Snow delays a potential excuse for late tax filing

HM Revenue & Customs may not charge late payment fines to tax filers if their submission was delayed due to adverse weather conditions.

The taxman confirmed those who suffered genuine problems due to the snow should be able to avoid the £100 late filing penalty the Daily Telegraph reported.

As a result of the weather some accountants were unable to get to work at all with some taxpayers saying they could not get the right documents to their accountants.

A spokesman for HMRC said: "If something has adversely affected them, we will consider it and this includes the bad weather.''

The tax office will most likely want evidence that steps were taken to submit documents on time if filers want to avoid paying the penalty.

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA, told the Daily Telegraph: “Taxpayers may have to show an audit trail and so they need to be straight with the taxman."

"HMRC knows there have been problems with the snow and while this is about e-filling, you still need to get the documents together and may have been affected by the weather,” he added.

The deadline for online filing was 31 January 2010, with paper returns submitted by 31 October 2009.

Further reading:

Tax avoidance ruling could net HMRC £200m