All I want for Christmas is to submit my client’s tax return

Not for nothing did Rachel Reeves commit to improving HMRC technology in her Autumn Budget. Online submission of corporation tax returns is generally mandatory, except in specific cases. This December, as with all quarter-ends (being the most common corporation tax deadline), companies and their tax advisors are having to plan carefully in order to make sure all tax returns get submitted on time.

Due to heavy traffic, HMRC’s systems simply cannot take the load and the company or advisor will get a response of ‘pending’ – at which point, the tax return may, or may not, get through and be submitted by the deadline of 31 December. Of course, ideally a company would plan to submit its tax return earlier, but there are various reasons that mean it may not be able to do so, for instance waiting for the statutory accounts to be signed off, or for a specific project to finish. This year, HMRC is paying particular attention to Corporate Interest Restriction administrative requirements, necessitating additional checks and meaning more taxpayers are needing to submit their returns in December.

Since HMRC should know how many returns its systems will need to deal with, it is surely a failure of planning as well as technology that the submission portal is unable to take the completely predictable load of companies needing to report their taxes to HMRC. HMRC, and politicians, may say it is incumbent on every taxpayer to pay and report ‘the right tax at the right time’ – but they don’t always make it easy.