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Morning, you battle-hardened taxpayers still nursing hangovers from the last brown envelope. Hot on the heels of trivial £50 demands and phantom billions, HMRC has unveiled its latest masterstroke: swapping the automatic £100 slap for late self-assessment returns with a shiny new penalty points system.
Launched in a quiet trial this month (January 2026) for 100 unlucky Making Tax Digital guinea pigs, before rolling out to the masses from April 2026/2027. No more instant £100 sting for a one-off miss. Instead, you get a "point". Rack up enough (two for annual filers in two years, four for quarterly MTD types), and bam – £200 fine. Repeat offenders get the bigger hit, while the occasional slipper gets "leeway". HMRC spins it as "fairer", targeting persistent dodgers rather than honest mistakes. Quote some accountant saying it's a "fairer alternative" and everyone's supposed to cheer.
Bollocks!
This isn't reform; it's window dressing on the same punitive regime that's been bleeding people dry for years. Here's why this points charade won't work and will probably make things worse:
It doesn't address the root cause: HMRC's own incompetence – Late filing often stems from their glacial processing, wrong tax codes, helpline black holes, or systems that crash more often than a drunk on ice. You miss a deadline because their portal ate your return? Tough – point added. The system that punishes you stays broken.
More admin, more confusion, more appeals – Now instead of one clear £100 hit, you've got a points ledger to track, thresholds varying by filing frequency, "soft landings" for MTD newbies, and points that stick around until you go two years clean. Good luck explaining that to a pensioner or freelancer who barely understands self-assessment now. Expect a surge in "reasonable excuse" appeals – which HMRC is notoriously rubbish at handling quickly or fairly.
Repeat offenders were already getting hammered – Under the old system, miss three years running and you're into £10/day escalating penalties plus potential £300 "failure to notify" kicks. The persistent ones pay big anyway. This just delays the pain for the first couple of slips before whacking them harder (£200 per breach once threshold hit). Net result? Same revenue, more resentment.
It's still revenue-raising dressed as fairness – The £200 fine is double the old £100 starter, and for quarterly MTD filers (coming for incomes over £50k then £30k), four points = four misses = £200 smack. With MTD forcing four times the submissions, the odds of racking points skyrocket. "Fairer"? Only if you believe HMRC when they say they're not just shifting the goalposts to extract more cash under the guise of leniency.
No incentive to fix their shambles – Why would HMRC bother improving helplines, digital services, or error rates when they can keep penalising from afar? This system lets them hide behind "points" while the underlying chaos (backlogs, sick days, legacy IT) festers.
It's classic HMRC: announce something that sounds progressive ("points like driving licences!"), but deliver more hassle, higher potential costs, and zero accountability for their own failures. The little people get more hoops; the department gets to pretend it's modernising.
Tax does have to be taxing.
But turning compliance into a game of
penalty points while your own house is on fire? That's just cynical,
bureaucratic sleight-of-hand.
Amazon "Penalty Points Survival Kit" Suggestions
- Calendar & Reminder App Subscription – because forgetting now costs points
- "I've Got Penalty Points" Mug – ironic comfort drinking
- Noise-Cancelling Headphones – for the inevitable appeal hold music
- Shredder (Heavy Duty) – for when the points letter arrives
- Whisky Miniatures – medicinal, obviously
HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
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