The outstanding payment to HMRC was often seen as the least urgent to settle as participants ‘did not perceive HMRC as posing a ‘direct’ risk to their financial and physical security’, according to independent research conducted for HMRC into the perceptions of tax debtors towards settlement.

The reasons for non-payment were attributed to a chaotic handling of their finances, administrative errors in completing self assessment due to inexperience and a distraction created by events in their personal life.