HMRC is warning 3.4m taxpayers to file as soon as possible or risk missing the Friday 31 January deadline, which means a £100 penalty is immediately incurred. The figure has only gone down 400,000 from 3.8m on Tuesday, which means people had better get their skates on as last year over 1.1m taxpayers missed the deadline.

There’s a big red flag this year due to changes to high income child benefit charge, with the £50,000 earnings threshold affecting 2023-24 returns so anyone falling into this bracket must file a tax return. The higher threshold only comes into force for tax returns from the 2024-25 tax year.

So far 8.6m people have filed their tax returns, representing 66% of the 12m taxpayers caught by self assessment.