The Inland Revenue's Web site which enables tax returned to be filed online is "failing to perform".

So says UK IT service management company, Parallel Ltd, which carried out tests on the site during the last week or so.

Between July 22 and 29, Parallel found that the site was unavailable for a total of 38 hours - available for just over three quarters of the time.

Last year the online tax filing service was dogged by problems. Now Parallel reckons that this current performance "fails to inspire any confidence".

Said Tim Moore, Director at Parallel: "The Inland Revenue site has once again shown to be failing to perform. Quite simply we are very disappointed to find that a major governmental web site can perform to these low levels."

A spokesman for the Inland Revenue disputed the findings of the research although admitted that the Self Assessment part of the site was down during the week for "routine maintenance". ®