Inland Revenue has lifted the threat of £100 fines and £60-a-day penalties from tens of thousands of taxpayers who tried in vain to file their tax returns over the internet in the last three days.

Self assessment taxpayers were frustrated in their attempts to get their returns in on time for last night's midnight deadline, because IR's online system buckled under the weight of last minute submissions.

The Revenue's online filing system would not allow people to log on and was unable to issue receipts.

Allan Edwards, a public relations consultant, had to print out paper tax returns and deliver them by hand to his local tax office yesterday.

"I tried to get on to the website on Sunday, but just couldn't log on," he said. Other self-assessment payers encountered similar difficulties.

Tax advisers nationwide reported tremendous problems with the online filing system over the weekend.

At first the Revenue refused to acknowledge the problems. Today, however, it apologised for the computer glitches and gave angry taxpayers 14 days' grace to resubmit their returns online. Payments will still have to be made on time.

"We have now resolved the delays in issuing responses to SA (self assessment) submissions submitted via the Internet over the weekend," the Revenue says, in a statement on its website.

"All queued messages have now been cleared and you will have received your submission responses."

There was relief too for those whose tax return was not accepted by the website - although anyone thinking of pretending that the internet ate their tax return, as an excuse for failing to get their submission in on time, is warned that they won't get away with it.

The statement continues: "We recognise that if the submissions failed our validation, you may be unable to rectify and resubmit before the deadline.

"We hold a complete record of all submissions over the weekend, and if any of those failed submissions are re-submitted within 14 days of the date when we sent out the 'submission failed' message we will waive any late filing penalty notices. Any payments due should still be made by 31 January."

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