A record number of taxpayers filed their self assessment tax returns online this year. A total of 5.75m returns were filed online by the 31 January deadline – over 50% increase on last year. In all 67% of self assessment tax returns were filed online by the deadline this year. Filing hit a peak of 390,000 on the busiest day, Friday 30 January, which is 185,000 more than the previous highest total recorded in the run up to last year's deadline.

The huge increase must be seen in the context of a changed Self Assessment landscape, with a full three months extra being given to taxpayers to file returns electronically rather than by traditional paper methods. This significant incentive has brought voluntary electronic filing up to close to the total number of returns which can realistically be filed electronically.