Research shows increase in Christmas tax returns

Research from HM Revenue and Customs has shown that more self-employed workers are choosing to complete their tax return early, with 14,000 people filing their return over the Christmas period.

The research found that 1,944 people filed their tax return online on Christmas Day, a decrease of 100 from last year.

Popular

According to HM Revenue and Customs, more people are submitting their return a month earlier than the deadline, with over 20,000 people choosing to so on 1st January 2016.

Christmas Eve and Boxing Day were also found to be popular days for submitting tax returns, with 6,214 and 6,200 people filing returns on these days respectively.

Whilst the figures showed a drop in the number of people submitting their returns on Christmas Day compared with last year, the number of people filing their return on Boxing Day increased by 800.

Commenting on the findings, accountants said that the surge in the number of people filing their return over the festive period could be a result of people who do not celebrate Christmas choosing to submit, whilst some people may be using the holiday to catch up with their paperwork.

Deadline

Paper tax returns have a deadline of 31st October, whilst self-employed workers have until 31st January to submit an online return.

Earlier this week, Which? announced that it has launched an online tax calculator to help people avoid mistakes when filling out their return and to enable them to submit the form directly to HM Revenue and Customs.