3rd February 2012

HMRC site experiencing difficulties

People trying to submit their contractor tax returns have experienced some minor glitches on the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website.

The deadline for filing tax returns was earlier this week, but users rushing to meet the cut-off date were left confused by the fact that the site did not update after they paid their taxes.

While the glitch did not prevent anybody from using the service, it did mean that those who had calculated and paid their money to the taxman were still shown a screen suggesting that they had thousands left to pay off for the 2010-11 tax year, Sky News reported.

A spokesman for HMRC told the news agency: “Due to high demand today, unfortunately some customers might face a slight delay to their 'view account' page updating. But this should rectify itself once demand subsides, and does not impact anybody's ability to file.”

Around 400,000 people attempted to file their tax returns on 31 January, possibly prompting the problems on the site. However, strike action by the Public and Commercial Services union on Monday has meant that HMRC was forced to push the cut-off date back to tomorrow (2 February) to allow sufficient time for enquiries and forms to be processed.