By Tim Ferguson, 31 January 2008 15:30
NEWS
Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has been forced to extend the deadline for filing self-assessment tax returns online after the website crashed due to the number of people trying to file their returns before the 31 January deadline.
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During the morning and early afternoon users trying to access the Self Assessment Online section of the HMRC website were confronted with the message "Online Service Temporarily Unavailable".
A silicon.com reader unable to get onto the Self Assessment site contacted the HMRC helpline and was told the problem was due to the high volume of people trying to access the service.
Anyone who failed to file their tax return online before midnight on 31 January was facing a £100 penalty but HMRC has now extended the deadline.
An HMRC spokesman told silicon.com the organisation takes disruption of any service very seriously and to reflect this, the self-assessment deadline has been extended by 24 hours to midnight on Friday 1 February.
The spokesman said: "HMRC's Self Assessment online filing service has experienced technical difficulties this morning which has meant that some tax payers have experienced difficulties filing online. The system is now rapidly returning to normal levels of service. A record number of 3.6 million taxpayers have already successfully filed online with 104,000 filing today."
In 2007, around three million people used the website to submit their tax return self assessments.
The system is part of the government ecommerce service, Government Gateway, which was updated last October to cope with future growth and to allow for usage peaks such as tax-filing deadlines.
Comments
There are 12 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard Davies
Did they not think to increase their capacity / resources available for this time of the year! This is what betting websites etc. do when it comes to major events etc. as you have to expect a surge!
2. Richard
Sorry to hear about that.
Luckily the HMRC SA service was working well when I completed my form (late last week) and "submitted" it (early this week).
The web-site still uses too much jargon - partly because the UK tax system is far too complex (thanks largely to micro-management and continual "tinkering" during the last decade).
However, having used online filing ever since its inception, I'd hate to return to completing a paper form.
Soon, I need to file my company's accounts (online) with Companies House - a very different, more difficult "service."
Then, I'll have to tussle with HMRC SA Corporation Tax - still a nightmare of jargon and complexity, even for a small simple company; Again made worse by continual "tinkering" and ridiculous complexity.
But these "services" do become easier after the first few years and really are better than paper forms or paying "professional" agents.
3. Roger Huffadine
Unforgivable - If one of the prime government departments can't put enough bandwidth and server capacity online for a predictable peak then what hope have we for e-government?
Makes you wonder if other essential services like GCHQ have the capacity that they really need.
4. anonymous
Tax payers have had ten months to complete their self assessments. I did mine in good time and with no problems. However inadequate the HMRC site might be, surely it's asking for trouble if you delay making your return until the last possible date? Check in late at an airport and you might miss your flight; arrive late at the cinema and the seats might be sold out.
5. Mark Hosey
A bit of help for those doing the future planning at HMRC:
The server bandwidth must be able to cope with the number of people (n) who want to file a claim on the 31st Jan.
In general you can expect the ratio, r(date), of people filing on the 31st Jan to those filing through out the year up to any particular date to be constant from year to year.
(Why? Because in any given situation a group of people will always act and respond on average in the same manner unless there is good reason for them not to! Marketing guys earn their bread and butter on the back of this principle!)
By the way, the closer "date" is to the last available date the better the estimate will be.
An error (e) can be estimated for r(date) based, perhaps, on the economic health of the country, but letting e = 1 (no error) is probably good enough.
Now assuming your software is up to the job you should be able to obtain a fugure for the number of people who have already filed their form up to a particular date f(date).
That means that a reasonable estimate can be mde for n:-
n = r(date) * e * f(date).
Now, here's the cleaver bit. Take that number n to the IT guys and just say to them "Please ensure we have sufficient band width on the last day for this load of tardy b*****ds, and make sure the bandwith can cope with a lunch time rush". (Lunch time rushes can be dealt with by using a very similar formula to the one above but if it's giving you a head ache I can give you help.)
And don't forget to say please and thankyou. IT guys are a bit p*ssed at the low wages, no prospects and high levels of being Take'n'fr'granted at the moment.
6. Karen Challinor
"The system is part of the government ecommerce service, Government Gateway, which was updated last October to cope with future growth and to allow for usage peaks such as tax-filing deadlines"
so this would be another example of a well specified and run government IT project then
7. Simon
Err, the system suffered from it's popularity last year IIRC, and the year before that. It must be such a surprise to the people running this system that each year, Jan 31st comes around on Jan 31st !
I too did my return a little while ago, but I left it until the last day to pay the bill - ie to be able to pay it out of this months pay packet rather than the overdraft. As far as I'm concerned, I'm entitled to keep hold of my money for as long as the rules allow, and I see no reason to pay a penny before it's due.
8. anonymous
I agree with the previous Mr anonomouse, just do it earlier. you dont wait till your car runs dry of petrol to pay your fuel tax do you (sorry fill up with petrol).
Come on be sensible, do your tat return earlier, you have had plenty of time already.
9. Sarah
I want to know why it is that if you use the largest tax office (Public 1) in Cardiff, you still are not able to file online....
And also, the extra day means that those filing as a paper version (not through choice) have a day less than those filing online.
10. Roger Huffadine
To those who say "do your tax return early" let me say that filing on the last day has - in the past saved me £11K in one year. Had I filed early I would not have been able to take advantage of a court ruling that came into force on the 12th of Dec one year. All of the 'anal' folk who did their returns early were unable to claim significant amounts of money from trading share options.
Always file on the last day, not because you are lazy but because sometimes there can be significant advantages.
11. Don Tregartha
File early,
pay as late as possible.
Not difficult.
12. Richard A
Ha, the upgrade in October really worked well then. I'm lucky at the moment that I don't have to file a tax return.
At least they had the common sense to extend the deadline.