HMRC to rake in £100m from a million late tax returns

While almost 11.5 million tax returns landed with HMRC before the 31 January deadline, an estimated one million did not file on time, data from HMRC showed. Late fillings trigger an automatic £100 penalty to taxpayers, meaning the tax man could make an extra £100m or more from those missing the deadline. However, the tax take could be even larger, with figures showing HMRC sometimes collects more than £200m from a range of late filing penalties. Yet fewer taxpayers missed the deadline this January than last year, when late returns topped 1.1 million. More than 12 million were ex...