Your tax return may be seen within eighteen months

Under a scheme being modelled by one of the larger national revenue authorities, filing a tax return would no longer be a deadline but a place on a waiting list, with each taxpayer notified when the authority is ready to receive them. The first weekly bulletin has been drafted. It reads like the weather because, the authority notes, it behaves like the weather.

Tax authorities in many countries have moved to pre-filled or largely automated returns, with staff numbers reduced in the expectation that automation would absorb the workload. At the same time, several revenue agencies have reported growing backlogs in processing, correspondence and refunds, along with long telephone waiting times. Public services from healthcare to passports have normalised the waiting list as a way of rationing capacity, publishing expected waits rather than expanding staff. Penalties for late filing generally continue to apply regardless of an authority's own processing delays.

Returns bulletin, issued 06:00, valid for the next twelve months. Northern districts, self-employed: backlog fourteen to sixteen months, rising slowly. Sole traders with rental income: sixteen to nineteen months, occasionally twenty, visibility poor. Central districts, employed, single income: seven to nine months, easing. Pensioners with dividends: veering long. Coastal districts, all categories: no intake until further notice. Outlook: refunds moderate or slack, becoming rare. Warnings of penalties are in operation in all areas, regardless of whether a return can be filed.

The scheme would follow from a decision, taken two restructurings ago, to pre-fill every return automatically and then have each one checked by a person before acceptance. Automation reduced the number of people. The number of returns did not fall. Under the scheme, a taxpayer would register an intention to file, receive a reference number, and be placed on a list ordered by what the authority calls fiscal urgency, a score derived from how much the state stands to gain. Those who owe would be seen first. Those who are owed would be seen when capacity allows, a phrase the authority uses without a date attached.

Tomas Reindl, a plumber in one of the northern districts, would have been on the list for eleven months by the time the bulletin went out. “I got a letter saying my return had been triaged as stable. I don't know what a stable tax return is. I know I have a shoebox of receipts that is starting to smell.” His reference number is in the four hundred thousands. The letter advises him to keep the receipts in a cool, dry place and to contact the authority only if his circumstances deteriorate.

A fast-track pathway would exist for returns judged urgent, defined as any case in which the taxpayer's liability exceeds a threshold or the taxpayer is likely to die before the list reaches them. Executors would be permitted to hold the deceased's place. A second pathway, described in the scheme as expedited on compassionate grounds, would cover businesses that need a filed return to obtain a loan, a licence or a mortgage, and would be available on payment of an expedition fee. The fee would be deductible. The deduction would be claimed on the following year's return, for which a separate list would open.

As with any waiting list, a private option would appear beside it. Accountancy firms would offer filing clinics where, for a fee, a return is prepared, sealed and lodged in a queue the firms describe as separate and the authority describes as the same queue entered through a different door. Dana Okoro, a freelance illustrator, would have paid for a clinic slot in the spring. “They gave me a lanyard and a cup of tea and told me I was now on the list. I asked which list. They said the list.” She would currently be at position 212,406, nineteen places ahead of where she started.

One official, speaking on condition that the authority not be named, described the list as a triumph of honesty. “For years we pretended every return was processed on time. Now we tell people exactly how long they will wait, to the month, and they can plan around it. Nobody is worse off. They are simply informed.” Asked about penalties for late filing, which under the scheme would continue to accrue from the original deadline, the official said penalties were a separate matter and were in any case being handled by a different list.

Regional variation would be significant. The bulletin's coastal notice, no intake until further notice, would refer to a district where the sole remaining reviewer has taken leave and the scheme does not permit returns to be moved between districts, since each district's backlog is counted as a budgetary asset. Taxpayers there would be advised to remain at their registered addresses. The authority's outlook for the following year is already drafted. It reads, in full: “Lists lengthening in all areas. Refunds becoming rare, then absent. Filing conditions poor. Taxpayers are advised not to attempt a return without a reference number, and to wait where they are.”