More than 2.1m tax returns filed within four weeks of deadline

Responding to a freedom of information request from Tilney, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said one-quarter - 2.1 million - of self-assessment returns for the 2016/17 tax year were submitted in the final four weeks before the 31 January deadline last year. Tilney managing director Jason Hollands said filing for tax returns could be stressful because it involved "quite a bit of preparation" and orderly recording keeping is not everyone's forte.  "It is all too easy to put off things that most of us regard as tedious until the eleventh hour, but leaving tax returns to the very last minute ...