IT problems have forced Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to extend the deadline for filing tax returns to midnight on Friday.

The self-assessment website has had problems all day and dozens of Reg readers have been unable to file their tax returns.

HMRC sent us the following statement:

HMRC’s Self Assessment on-line filing service has experienced technical difficulties this morning which has meant that some tax payers have experienced difficulties filing on-line. The system is now rapidly returning to normal levels of service. A record number of 3.6 million taxpayers have already successfully filed on-line with 104,000 filing today.

HMRC takes any disruption of service very seriously and to reflect this no-one who files electronically or by paper by midnight Friday 1 February will face a penalty.

We very much regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

No word yet on what caused the problems. ®

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