The current value to the treasury of all fines for the late filing of income tax returns, for the past financial year (April 2020 - April 2021), is £618,792

However, this total will have since been reduced based on penalty appeals and the raising of assessment liabilities.

The figure was revealed by a freedom of information request made on October 22, at which time there were 6,193 income tax returns outstanding (though again, this number will have since been reduced by appeals).

For example, immediately after the October 6 deadline, there were 9,281 individual returns outstanding.

The value is made up from the £100 penalty charges handed out to those that hadn’t returned their form by October 6).

For non-filing by April 6, there is a second penalty charge of £200.

There were 4,391 £100 penalties issued in the year ending 2016/17, 4,572 in 2017/18, 5,248 in 2018/19, and 5,160 for 2019/20.

And for second penalties, there were 1,967 in 2016/17, 2,252 in 2017/18, 2,251 in 2018/19, and 2,645 in 2019/20.

Advocate Ian Kermode, who made the Freedom of Information request, said these historic figures gave ’an indication as to the scale of the extra government revenue generated’.