AROUND 7% of Scots are likely to miss their tax return deadline, according to HM Revenue and Customs figures.

The figure is in line with the UK average for returns, which saw Inner Londoners the worst offenders with around one in nine (11%) of the 560,000 people in the area failing to send in a tax return by the relevant deadlines of October 31 for paper returns and January 31 for online submissions.

The one million taxpayers in outer London were more punctual, with one in 11 (9%) failing to meet the deadline, but they were still the second worst offenders, HMRC said. The tardiest taxpayers outside London were in the North West of England, with 8% of their 890,000 returns failing to meet the deadline.

The most punctual taxpayers live in the South West, with only 6% of their one million tax returns arriving late last year.

Around 10.9 million people are expected send a tax return for the 2012-13 tax year and more than 3.5 million returns are still due to be received before the January 31 deadline.

The penalty for not getting a tax return in to the HMRC on time is £100.