Martin Lewis issues £100 HMRC fine warning with January deadline

“In fact, what that means is even if you can’t do the form in time, have a rough guess of what you owe and pay that because that would reduce any interest you needed to pay for late payment of your tax.”

Who needs to heed this advice

Mr Lewis clarified: “Well, the first thing to say is anyone HMRC has told to do so. If you’ve been sent a self-assessment tax form to do it, you have to do it, even if you don’t think you have to, you have to do it. Now, that’s more likely with people who are higher 40% or additional top 45% rate taxpayers or people with complex tax affairs.

“The other main categories of who should do it if you haven’t been sent a self-assessment form are those who are self-employed and who’ve earned over £1,000 in the tax year. So remember, this is the tax year from the 6th of April 2024 until the 5th of April 2025.

“Anyone who gets child benefit and earned over £60,000 in the tax year and hasn’t opted to change your tax code so that you pay it through that way. Anyone who’s earned over £10,000 from savings interest or investment dividends in the tax year.”

With less than a month until the 31 January deadline, 54,053 individuals rang in the new year by submitting their tax return for 2024-25 on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The most popular time over the two days was between 11.00am and 11.59am on 31 December, with 3,927 people filing their return.

So far, more than 6.36 million taxpayers have submitted their tax return, but nearly 5.65 million still need to complete their self-assessment form before the deadline. Those who miss the deadline could face an initial late filing penalty of £100, followed by potential additional penalties. This £100 fixed penalty applies even if there is no tax due or if the tax due is paid on time.

HMRC has stated that individuals can begin their tax return, save it, and revisit it as many times as they need before submitting it. Once submitted, the bill does not need to be paid immediately, but it must be paid before the 31 January deadline. Individuals can set up notifications in the HMRC app to ensure they know when payments are due and avoid missing a deadline.

Those unable to meet the deadline are urged to inform HMRC before 31 January. HMRC has assured that it will treat those with reasonable excuses fairly.