MSE News: Tax chaos Q&A: How to fight HMRC demands

rentawitch

does it work, Gardiner - periodically and as far as the phone is concerned, they will take security information IF you can get through.
As an accountant we get special numbers to call and even then the wait can be long.

Some of my clients have hung on for over an hour and got nowhere.

Realistically, people should be aware of course of advising the Revenue of their contact details. This can be done through the employer but no harm in also ringing the last tax office you dealt with and telling them yourself.

The Revenue cannot reasonably in my opinion ask someone to lose £100 per month from their net income which is what they are suggesting with a coding adjustment to collect back tax over a year.

In my opinion, try to invoke ESC A19 and if they wriggle out of that then plead poverty and write letters until they get sick of you!

Involve your MP, moneybox and anyone else you can think of.

If anyone has had one of these letters and needs help, you can PM me on here.
Kris
(i have been working in tax since 1973 first for the Revenue and from 1978 in various firms of accountants)

harryhound

rentawitch wrote: »

does it work, Gardiner - periodically and as far as the phone is concerned, they will take security information IF you can get through.
As an accountant we get special numbers to call and even then the wait can be long.

Some of my clients have hung on for over an hour and got nowhere.

Realistically, people should be aware of course of advising the Revenue of their contact details. This can be done through the employer but no harm in also ringing the last tax office you dealt with and telling them yourself.

The Revenue cannot reasonably in my opinion ask someone to lose £100 per month from their net income which is what they are suggesting with a coding adjustment to collect back tax over a year.

In my opinion, try to invoke ESC A19 and if they wriggle out of that then plead poverty and write letters until they get sick of you!

Involve your MP, moneybox and anyone else you can think of.

If anyone has had one of these letters and needs help, you can PM me on here.
Kris
(i have been working in tax since 1973 first for the Revenue and from 1978 in various firms of accountants)

Why the hell do you get special privileges !
Are you some sort of superior citizen with a hot line to God?

I'm not even allowed to phone back someone who cannot be bothered to read my letters!

chrismac1

We get a special line, Harry, because:

1. We are calling almost every day for several clients and not just one.

2. We can often be calling about several different issues at once - say VAT, the CIS scheme and Corporation Tax. So the folk on the standard helpline would just either crumble or give the standard "Jobsworth here - must be someone else you need to speak to" response to tricky issues.

In the past, line A has said "call line B" who said "call line C" who said "call line D" who said "call line A". So after 30 minutes you have gone precisely nowhere. Following protests this separate number came in.

GARDINER

Around 17 years ago whilst still working for the Department everyone in my grade (Executive Officer) were told that the Government were considering privatizing the Inland Revenue (don't laugh) and if we wanted to keeep our jobs then we would have to be looking to secure management roles rather than the actual taxation work we were doing (I said don't laugh) Privatization of course didn't transpire for us but then self assessment was introduced in my opinion as a back door attempt at privatization. HMRC make it difficult for 'customers' without agents because they want everyone to have an agent. Then the staff within the department can all be managers without the need to know anything at all about taxation - the agents will tell HMRC shop floor staff how to do everything. So now you know- quite clever really except it didn't quite work the way they wanted and so HMRC had to alter the criteria for SA Returns to ensure a reduction in numbers because not everyone was playing ball.

zygurat789

dori2o wrote: »

How many private sector companies deal with as many customers as HMRC does?

Answer - All of them. Customers can always take their business elsewhere

Paul_Herring

zygurat789 wrote: »

Answer - All of them. Customers can always take their business elsewhere

Hmm - so where can I take my business with HMRC (without leaving the country, of course...)?

Pennywise

dori2o wrote: »

But, what more can those who work at HMRC do. There is only so much work you can deal with in a day, only so many calls that can be taken.

The front line HMRC staff are far from blameless though.

I'm a practising accountant and it never ceases to amaze me how much worse the HMRC's so-called service gets every year. It's been going downhill for at least a decade.

The number of calls and letters they receive would probably halve if they did the job properly upon first contact. An enormous number of calls and letters will be because the first person contacted didn't do their job properly, either not making the changes asked for, giving the wrong advice, etc.

I'm the first to admit the systems are truly horrendous and clearly designed and written by idiots, but a lot of their staff don't help the situation, causing further phone calls and letters which in turn increases the workloads further.

This year to date, I've never made so many formal complaints about poor advice and shoddy service. I used to only make 1 or 2 a year, but it's more like 1 or 2 a week at the moment. It's virtually every contact I have to make with them (outside the automated electronic system that seems fine) which goes wrong - mostly because of very stupid basic mistakes which any reasonably intelligent person would never make. It's clear they've got rid of all the tax staff who actually knew what they were doing and have instead brought in call centres full of people who seem lacking in the basics.

GARDINER

I agree Pennywise however I don't believe that it the frontline staff to blame in most instances. The blame lies with ineffective, inefficeint and incompetent management and lack of proper training. I trained for two years in a 'training centre' environment back in the 70's these days and for a number of years now, recruits/promotees are lucky to get a few days training before they are let loose on the public. For some reason management seem to think that computers are the answer to everything. If you don't know how to feed the computer correctly all you will get is copious amounts of s**t.

harryhound

Gigo - gigo - gigo - gigo!

GARDINER

What does 'gigo' mean harryhound? Have I upset you?