UK taxpayers in panic as Inland Revenue system screws up

You probably were also not alone in discovering that leaving it right to the last minute to go online for a spot of electronic filing wasn't such a good plan.

Like many, you may have discovered that the handy user IDs pre-emptively mailed out by Her Majesty's finest tax collector at the start of the 2002-3 tax year "so that you can log straight on and use our secure service without having to first register and wait for a user ID to be sent through the post" didn't..er..actually work?

According to the friendly-but-powerless-to-help bods on the Revenue's Electronic Business Helpdesk, unused IDs were deactivated in July 2003, which seems to be a tad churlish given the actual deadline for filing.

Hands up if you reverted to the original paper forms or the downloadable PDF versions and then drove like a bat out of hell to the nearest tax office on Saturday night.

You did know that any paperwork dropped through the letterboxes before start of play on Monday would also count as filed on time, didn't you!? µ