HMRC denies ‘deliberately poor’ phone service for taxpayers
Getty ImagesHMRC has denied providing a “deliberately poor” telephone service in an attempt to push taxpayers to seek help online.
A report by a committee of MPs found nearly 44,000 customers were cut off without warning after waiting for more than an hour last year.
The report said HMRC’s services had gotten worse since then and warned the authority had “undermined trust in the tax system”.
Jim Harra, chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), said the commission’s allegations about its customer service were “completely baseless”, adding “we have made huge improvements to service standards, Call wait times have decreased by 17 minutes since April last year.”
The report comes ahead of the January 31 deadline for self-assessment tax returns, which is likely to lead to increased demand for help.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report said HMRC’s phone lines were down in the first 11 months of the 2023-24 financial year, with 43,690 clients waiting 70 minutes to contact an adviser.
That number is more than six times the 6,875 for the entire 2022-23 financial year so far.
The report added that this was because HMRC’s systems could not cope with the volume of calls, but customers were not warned that calls were about to be cut off and were not called back.
The National Audit Office (NAO) published the number of callers cut off in May last year, but the figure was highlighted by MPs concerned that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) would exhaust its own helpline.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chairman of the PAC, said HMRC’s customer service was “constantly hitting new lows” every year.
He added: “Worse, as a matter of policy, it appears to be degrading its own service.”
He told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday that HMRC’s progress on online communications was “still very slow” compared with other government organizations such as the Passport Agency.
He added: “If they don’t offer a digital service, which is not the case in all cases, they won’t be surprised that their customers want to contact them by phone.”
“Irrecoverable debt”
The committee called for “bold and ambitious leadership” to improve its customer service and better tackle tax system abuse and unpaid debts.
HMRC wrote off £5bn of uncollectible debt in 2023-24, up from £3.2bn in 2022-23.
The report calls on authorities to better understand the offshore tax gap, the difference between tax that should be paid and what is actually paid.
It also raises concerns about declining rates of criminal investigations and prosecutions for tax-related crimes.
The recommendations come after a series of criticisms of HMRC since it began working to become a “digital first” organization in 2010.
Last March, the company announced it would shut down its phone lines between April and September, but Forced to change decisions within 24 hours.
A report in May found The average waiting time for customers is nearly 23 minutes Contact an advisor.
Mr Harra, First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive of HMRC, said: “We will always answer the phone for those who need extra help. At the same time, more than 80% of customers are satisfied with our digital services, which is increasingly Many people use them to manage their tax affairs quickly and easily. ”
