The department says most of the top ten excuses for failing to file and pay by 31 January rely on claims that it was someone else’s fault and not simple taxpayer oversight.

Topping the list of terrible excuses used in unsuccessful appeals against HMRC penalties for late filing and payment over the past year is the inevitable ‘my pet dog ate my tax return and all the reminders’.

This lame dog of an excuse claiming the paperwork never arrived is in the same vein as the next suggested reason for delay, namely ‘I was up a mountain in Wales, and couldn’t find a postbox or get an internet signal’.

A variant on this theme is ‘I live in a camper van in a supermarket car park’ and ‘I was in Australia’.

More sinister explanations given to HMRC to explain taxpayer tardiness included ‘I fell in with the wrong crowd’ and ‘I’ve been travelling the world, trying to escape from a foreign intelligence agency’.

The final trilogy is simply bizarre, ranging from the unlikely ‘Barack Obama is in charge of my finances’, via the surreal ‘I’ve been busy looking after a flock of escaped parrots and some fox cubs’, through to the downright ridiculous claim by a taxpayer that  ‘A work colleague borrowed my tax return, to photocopy it, and didn’t give it back’.

Ruth Owen,  HMRC director general of personal tax, said: ‘People can have a genuine excuse for missing a tax deadline, but owning a pet with a taste for HMRC envelopes isn’t one of them.

‘You need to file your 2013/14 tax return online, and pay what you owe, by 31 January. But it’s best to do it now, to allow plenty of time to sort out any issues with your return. That way, you’ll avoid the busy period for our phone lines as the deadline approaches.’

There is advice on self assessment requirements and filing on HMRC’s new Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/HMRC-Self-Assessment/889532404414691 and on the GOV.uk website here: https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns