Penalising the poor: 420,000 HMRC penalties charged to people who earned too little to pay tax. That's 40% of all HMRC late filing penalties.

Between 2018 and 2022, almost 660,000 people on low incomes received a penalty for not filing a tax return on time. Very few of them earned enough to pay any tax. But, by failing to submit a tax return, they were fined at least £100, and often thousands of pounds. For most of those affected, the pen