It’s that time of the year when Christmas-New Year holidays are long over and the January 31 deadline to submit income tax returns is near. It is also the time when people come up with quirky excuses to explain delay to file the returns.

Every year, the taxman compiles a list of ingenuous excuses Britons give to miss the deadline — from dog eating the returns, arguments with wife lasting five years, spilling coffee on the papers, or wife seeing aliens and not allowing the individual to enter the house.

Cautioning people not to miss the deadline for the assessment year 2017-18, the taxman said most people complete their tax returns honestly and on time but every year, the department receives outlandish excuses and expense claims.

The latest list of excuses released on Thursday includes:

‘My mother-in-law is a witch and put a curse on me’.

‘I’m too short to reach the post box’.

‘I was just too busy – my first maid left, my second maid stole from me, and my third maid was very slow to learn’.

‘My boiler had broken and my fingers were too cold to type’.

Some of the more imaginative excuses:

‘I couldn’t file my return on time as my wife has been seeing aliens and won’t let me enter the house’.

‘My ex-wife left my tax return upstairs, but I suffer from vertigo and can’t go upstairs to retrieve it’.

‘My business doesn’t really do anything’.

‘My tax return was on my yacht…which caught fire.’

‘A wasp in my car caused me to have an accident and my tax return, which was inside, was destroyed’.

‘My dog ate my tax return…and all of the reminders.’

‘My husband told me the deadline was 31 March.’

‘I’m not a paperwork orientated person – I always relied on my sister to complete my returns but we have now fallen out’.

Angela MacDonald of Revenue and Customs said: “We want to make it as simple as possible for our customers to do their tax returns and the majority make the effort to do theirs right and on time. But each year, we still come across some poor excuses and expenses which range from problems with maids to televisions”.

“Help will always be provided for those who have a genuine excuse for not submitting their return on time but it’s unfair to the majority of honest taxpayers when others make bogus claims,” she said.

First Published: Jan 24, 2019 19:40 IST