Completing your tax return may not have been top of your priorities on Christmas Day, but that didn’t stop 2,616 taxpayers from filing their Self-Assessment returns on 25 December 2018.

For some taxpayers completing their return on Christmas Day is as traditional as spending time with family and friends or waiting for the Boxing Day sales to start. The peak filing time, according to HMRC, was between 1pm and 2pm, when more than 230 customers filed.

Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said:

This year, more than 2,600 taxpayers chose to file their returns on Christmas Day.

Whether you fit it in while cooking the Christmas turkey, or after the kids have gone to bed, or after the Queen’s Speech, our online service is available for you to file your tax return at a time that suits you.

More than 11 million taxpayers are expected to complete a 2017-18 Self-Assessment tax return form by 31 January 2019.

Taxpayers who completed a Self-Assessment tax return last year but didn’t have any tax to pay, they will still need to complete a 2017-18 tax return unless HMRC has written to them to say that it is not required.

And don’t forget, the 31st January filing deadline is also the date that any arrears of self-assessment tax and NIC due for 2017-18 will need to be paid. To add salt to the wound, you may also need to make a payment on account for 2018-19.

Our advice, if you have not yet filed your return, do so as quickly as possible. In this way you can see what any tax payments at the end of the month may be before the due date.

The government is to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent.

• Government to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent

• proposed measures will include guaranteeing consumer schemes like Christmas savings clubs can safeguard customers’ money

• reforms are part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy to ensure markets work in the interests of consumers

New laws to protect consumers who have already paid for products but not received them when businesses go bust will be considered by the government, it was announced Thursday 27 December 2018.

Business Secretary Greg Clark confirmed that during 2019 the government will consult on laws requiring consumer prepayments to be protected in particular sectors. This would further strengthen the government’s ability to respond quickly to problems involving consumers who have prepaid for goods or services before a firm becomes insolvent. Common forms of prepayment include internet orders, the purchase of gift vouchers and money saved in payment schemes marketed as forms of saving like Christmas savings clubs.

If a business running a savings club becomes insolvent, consumers’ money is not protected unlike when it is saved in a UK-regulated bank account. New laws proposed today would see this money safeguarded, with legislation requiring businesses to adopt measures to protect customers against losses – whether that is through trusts, insurance or other mechanisms.

If enacted this announcement by the Department for Business will help to protect consumers who have laid out funds and are waiting for delivery of the relevant goods or services. As much of the concerns of Parliament are Brexit focussed at present it will remain to be seen if meaningful legislative change is completed this year.