The credibility of e-government was set back today when the Inland Revenue admitted thousands of online self-assessment tax returns were rejected, forcing the deadline to be extended by two weeks.

People filing their tax returns over the weekend feared that they would be liable for a £100 fine for late completion, after overloaded web servers refused to accept submissions before yesterday’s midnight deadline. The Inland Revenue has promised to waive the charge for anyone who attempted to submit online, which the agency will check against a list of attempted returns.

This is a remarkable change of fortune for the online self-assessment system, as less than two weeks ago the Inland Revenue was a joint winner of publictechnology.net’s e-Government Excellence Award for Strategic Plan/Achievement (Central Government).