HM Revenue and Customs received almost 600,000 last-minute online tax returns yesterday as taxpayers rushed to meet the deadline.
During the busiest period between 4-5pm yesterday, more than 12 returns per second were received.
A record number of 9.61m taxpayers, 93 per cent, submitted their tax returns by the deadline this year, 31 October for paper returns and 31 January for online returns. This figure was up from 9.4m last year.
The majority of returns were submitted online with just 1.7m being submitted on paper.
Some 27,000 people submitted a return on New Year's Eve while 12,000 submitted theirs on New Years Day.
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HMRC is still waiting for around 740,000 returns to be submitted out of a total 10.34m people in Self Assessment. This total is down from 10.6m last year as more than 300,000 people contacted HMRC to say they did not need to be in Self Assessment and had their returns cancelled.
Those people who have not submitted their returns will have already received a £100 initial penalty.
After three months there will be an additional penalty of £10 per day, up to a maximum of £900. After six months, a further penalty of £300 or five per cent of the tax due will be added.
If a person has not submitted their return after a year, another £300 charge or five per cent of the tax due will be added again.

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