News

As the Self Assessment tax return deadline approached last week, some taxpayers paying HMRC through the BillPay system, managed by Santander Corporate Banking, were charged more than once when trying to pay their tax bill.

According to reports, some customers had multiple payments taken despite receiving ‘transaction failed’ notifications.

 

On day of the deadline – 31st January – HMRC received 578,000 online submissions. During the peak, 46,000 returns were received in one hour. Some customers have reported spending up to three hours trying to pay as high traffic put pressure on the system.

 
The number of people choosing to file their tax return online has doubled in the past five years and, as a result, HMRC claims to have improved its online data systems.

 

A spokesman for HMRC said: ‘At the end of January, Santander experienced technical problems with their BillPay system resulting in some people making more than one payment. We have already started repaying overpaid tax to those affected and we expect to have this work completed by tomorrow.