HMRC deliberately cutting off calls?
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has severely criticised HMRC's customer service, forcing it to make a public statement. What's the full story?
Related Topics
-
Tax relief for lending to your company
You can usually claim tax relief for money you borrow personally to lend to your company. It sounds straightforward but there are in fact a number of restrictions to trip you up. How do you secure the tax relief?
-
Who can't yet sign up for MTD IT?
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD IT) becomes mandatory from April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. However, HMRC’s current guidance makes clear that not everyone can sign up yet. If you are preparing early, are you actually eligible?
-
Pay self-assessment tax
HMRC is in the firing line of the PAC again this week. Previously, the public watchdog has criticised HMRC for cutting services, such as its tax and VAT helplines. Now, it has ramped up its narrative - with an accusation that HMRC is running a “deliberately poor” phone service in an effort to force taxpayers to use its online solutions instead. The scathing allegation comes in the wake of a report by a committee of MPs found that nearly 44,000 people were disconnected (and not called back) whilst being on hold for more than an hour in the 2023/24 tax year.
There is certainly no denying that HMRC is keen to make taxpayers aware of its online help options, such as its online chat bot. However, these are unlikely to be of use for anything but the simplest of questions. We're aware of one person who tried to use it to resolve a capital allowances query and was directed to information about child benefit!
Jim Harra, chief executive, denied that HMRC was using such a tactic, pointing to falling call wait times as evidence of improved customer service over the last year.
This website uses both its own and third-party cookies to analyze our services and navigation on our website in order to improve its contents (analytical purposes: measure visits and sources of web traffic). The legal basis is the consent of the user, except in the case of basic cookies, which are essential to navigate this website.