As previously announced, HMRC will not issue late filing penalties for 2020/21 self assessment tax returns filed online by 28 February 2022. That deadline has now passed and HMRC is expected to start issuing £100 late filing penalty notices shortly for the 1.3m taxpayers that did not file by that date.

As it did last year, HMRC has agreed to accept bulk appeals against late filing penalties from agents where the reason for late filing is related to coronavirus.

The bulk appeal process should not be used for:

• penalties subject to appeal on other grounds (existing channels should be used); or
• High Net Worth Unit cases (these should be appealed individually).

When making a bulk appeal, follow this process:

• Appeals must be made on the standard template.
• All fields on the form must be completed for each client. HMRC will not process the appeal for a client where all fields are not completed
• Each form can be used for a maximum of 25 clients. Further forms can be submitted for additional clients. If multiple forms are completed, these should be sent in separate envelopes.
• The forms must be sent to HMRC at Bulk Agent Appeals, HM Revenue and Customs, BX9 1ZH.

The bulk appeal process will be available between 9 March and 6 May 2022. This allows 30 days after HMRC expects to have issued all the relevant penalty notices.

HMRC reserves the right to carry out random checks to ensure the validity of the data or to seek further clarification as to the exact nature of the COVID-19 related reasonable excuse.