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A last-minute rush pushed the number of online tax returns to a new record this year, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Some 6,907,410 taxpayers filed their self-assessment tax returns online within the legal time scale, 7 per cent more than in 2010.
On the final day for online returns, 572,455 people waited until the last day before submitting their tax details.
Now in its eleventh year, online filing accounts for 78 per cent of personal tax returns.
The peak hour for filing online was between 16:00 and 17:00 on 31 January with just over 49,000 submitted in that hour.
John Whiting of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) said: “Online filing is now very well established and going well.
“However the rate of increase is now tailing off, which is not surprising as there will always be some people who want to file by paper – so we don’t want to head for online filing only,” he added.
Chas Roy-Chowdhury of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) said although there had been some glitches with the system this year it generally worked well, which had encouraged more people to use it.
“They can file with certainty and know how much they owe, there and then – it is all over fairly quickly,” he said.
