Oxford's tax office is "in chaos", according to a husband-and-wife business team who face the prospect of forking out £200 in penalties.

Angela Frost, who runs Own Your Lifestyle with her husband Philip, claims she delivered her self-assessment tax return on January 31, the day before the deadline.

But the couple, who distribute Aloe Vera products from their home in Berinsfield, have each received a £100 penalty notice from Revenue and Customs.

Their problems arose after the Revenue and Customs website crashed on January 31, which led to the deadline for tax forms being extended by a day.

The system had been overloaded by taxpayers making last-minute returns.

Mrs Frost said: "Despite the problems with the website, I still managed to get our individual tax forms completed by 9.30am on January 31.

"But they don't have a system for doing a partnership form online - so I had to fill in a form and take it up to the Cowley office.

"I took it up before 9am on January 31 and dropped it off because I wanted to be sure it arrived. The next thing, we both got penalty notices.

"Apparently, someone was marking them off on the system saying they had arrived, while someone else was sending them out to be dealt with by other offices."

Mrs Frost was told the tax return had been received - but was told a penalty notice was still being issued and the couple had to appeal.

She said: "The information on the penalty notification is completely wrong - it had a different reference number and was addressed to Phil and Angie's Healthcare, when we changed the name three years ago.

"As far as I am concerned, it's a total farce, and you wonder how many people are they doing this to?

"One of the problems is that our individual tax returns go to a different office from the partnership ones. Why can't they go to the same place?"

Revenue and Customs spokesman Jennie Kendall said: "We are very sorry to hear of the problems this customer has had.

"No one who submits a return on time will ever have to pay a penalty.

"We apologise to both customers for any distress caused by the penalty notice issued to them in error.

"We receive nearly two million tax returns in the last ten days coming up to the deadline.

"Unfortunately with a project of this scale things will very occasionally go wrong. We make every effort to minimise mistakes, when they do occur we sort things out as quickly as possible."