Taxpayers spent the equivalent of two hours filing their tax returns in the last year, adding up to 25m hours of tax admin, research by Which has found

 

This means that an astonishing 25 million hours were spent completing UK tax returns. Which published the research findings just ahead of the 31 January 2022 tax deadline. The survey found that 25%, of taxpayers managed to complete their return in less than one hour, but 8% said that they spent more than five hours on their tax return.

 

HMRC indicated that there are still 4m people in the UK who are yet to submit their self-employment returns. HMRC expects to see more than 12.2m people to file returns by the end of January.

 

When it comes to paying the tax they owe, the Which research survey found that while 38% of people have already budgeted for the tax bill, some 22%, were planning to raid their savings to pay the tax bill, while 9%, said they had not thought about it yet.

 

The survey also found that 17% of people were planning to use HMRC’s Time to Pay arrangement for the tax they owe in 2020-21.

 

Which also exposed the gaps in people's  tax knowledge. Three in 10 people wrongly thought you don’t have to pay tax on the state pension.

 

It also found that one in eight people were not aware that the self employment income support scheme (SEISS) was taxable and had to be declared on their tax return.