No. Not yours. I mean the death of someone close to you.
I spoke with someone recently and their husband died in December 23. As a result they did not get their 2023 income tax return by the 31st January 2024.
HMRC will be fining them as you read this but is that fair? Well the problem is the return is still outstanding. HMRC do allow penalty appeals based on a reasonable excuse. I think there would have been a fair chance of appeal here if the return had gone in a little late but we are now 9 months after the deadline. I don’t think the appeal will work. The time and effort spent fighting it is better used getting the outstanding return in as soon as possible and that is what we will do.
What could be done to prevent a spouse from being in this position in the first place? Well believe it or not using cloud based software like Hammock is a great failsafe for moments exactly like this. The idea of digging through a home office full of paperwork while mourning is on nobody’s list of things to do. Keeping your records up to date as you go and ensuring your tax advisor has access would in this case have probably saved over £1,500 of penalties and a lot of stress!
As me about Hammock and I will gladly give a demo!