Getting hold of HMRC

chrismac1

To sandx - the accountancy bodies have been saying HMRC should offer an e-mail service for years. After all, name another large organisation which doesn't communicate by e-mail. In fairness, the HMRC urgent issues folk at Southend will communicate by e-mail. Apparently HMRC senior management have some sort of plan to put in an e-mail facility. I am not holding my breath on that one.

It seems as though the 96 hour database shut down is a reality. Unbelievable. Twenty years ago this sort of thing was OK, that was about 5 or 6 IT generations ago though. It's a P45 in the private sector for even suggesting a shutdown period like that. Even the hapless banks don't dare to try 4-day IT upgrades any more.

Pennywise

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush wrote: »

Statistically, 84% of the time this phrase is used, the person has indeed made it up.

Believe me, I don't need to make anything up about HMRC incompetence and stupidity.

villabadger

silverjay wrote: »

Seems perfectly reasonable for them to need time to upgrade to the new tax year which starts on 6/4/11.

I agree that it makes sense to do things before the new tax year but 4/5 days seems to be an inordinate amount of time. I assume they are carrying out hardware and software upgrades to justify this amount of downtime.

suso

sandx wrote: »

I can see there are a lot of people out there that share my frustration.

If HMRC are getting so many calls, why can't they offer an email address?

I've checked the online self assessment web site and can't see an address for complaints about HMRC either. My complaint would be about the letters arriving 2 weeks after their letter date and the repeat demand letter dated 27th Feb when someone at HMRC has told me my money went through on 25th Feb.
:mad:

So an automatic demand letter, went out after you made payment, but before it was cleared on your sa record. Pretty standard fare, things cross over in the post for all business's.

When a payment is made to HMRC depending on the payment method they will backdate it a number of days to show an effective payment date, this is the date shown on your statement, If a payment is in transit when the statement is printed then it won't be shown.

The alternative is, HMRC impose a system which says the payment must be made and cleared in their account by the deadline. this means payments must be made by approx 25th January for this year (taking in account the weekend as deadline day was a monday)

Of course if it had been paid by the deadline of 31st January then no demand letter would have been issued

complaints procedure can be found here
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/complaints-appeals/

suso

villabadger wrote: »

I agree that it makes sense to do things before the new tax year but 4/5 days seems to be an inordinate amount of time. I assume they are carrying out hardware and software upgrades to justify this amount of downtime.

pretty much the same thing happened last year, but because it was Easter weekend it went mostly unreported

chrismac1

So to clarify. The HMRC definition of a moron is someone who complains about HMRC or can't get their head round the slow-moving jobsworthy processes which move accordingly to geological time laws but have recently hit something of a cataclysm. And right there in that one post you have the root cause of the problem, because this head in the sand attitude is deeply embedded in the culture and until it is got rid of the taxpayers of the UK will have to accept that communication with HMRC is massively challenging. And the Government of the UK will have to accept that every year they will receive £70Bn less in taxes than they could otherwise receive.

JasonLVC

Seeing as the poster has since deleted their comments, then it is only fair that I delete thier quote from my post. But my post remains intact in every other respect.


The legislation makes it very clear that penalties are not due where there is a reasonable excuse - see link below - as it would appear you have forgotten that HMRC have to operate under the law :-

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/deadlines-penalties.htm#3

So whilst people who miss deadlines are annoying I agree, not all of them are "morons" as you suggest. Perhaps they were a victim of theft, perhaps a family member died and they had more important things to do than to hang on the phone for 30 minutes to talk to an officer who believes everyone who doesn't pay is "moronic".

Having failed to collect taxes correctly, failed to protect private data and failed to even get taxpayers tax codes right, you'd think HMRC would be a little more understanding about 'errors' people make.;)

John_Pierpoint

"The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath"

Unfortunately our enlightenment democracy has got to the point where lots of us are working for the state, the majority of the time, not for ourselves.

How much "wealth" is created by state employees?
Nurses?
Teachers?
Perhaps some of the "policing" activities - Some lawyers, some local authority functions, some military functions.
etc.
But how much is just transfer payments.
How much is just buying votes?
How much goes in the "friction" of the tax authorities getting in on almost every financial transaction?

System

Bar a couple of posts on this thread in response to the Op's original complaint this thread seems to have degenerated into an Accountants v HMRC employee slanging match.

I, as an HMRC employee, wholeheartedly agree with some of the comments about the too numerous to mention helpline numbers, the long queues waiting for an answer and the ongoing push by the government to get everyone either online or on the phone but not email. I also fully understand both the public and the accountants frustration with the effects of HMRC's continued game of musical staff.

Re the numerous helpline numbers all I can say is that is the way it is. If accountants and the public want 1 number then as far as I can see you will have to listen to one of the longest IVR messages ever to get through to whatever department you want. I personally hate those press 1 for this and press 2 for that numbers :mad:. Perhaps the public should have been polled on what they think about them on the latest census. An old fashioned telephone exchange doesn't seem to on the horizon. However more and more staff are being diverted to work in contact centres so the theory, according to senior managers, is that it shouldn't be as difficult, or take as long, to get through in the future and contact centre staff are being given more and more discretion to do more themselves rather than refer to processing staff.

You will have to accept though that when you do eventually get through you will not get speaking to a fully qualified accountant or a tax inspector. And contrary to some of the impressions given on this website neither will you get through to people whose sole purpose every day is to make live difficult for you. The vast majority of us want to help you and if we can't we want to get your query directed to someone who can. That's also why some of us come on this forum and offer advice just like the accountants and financial advisors who do the same.

Yes sometimes you'll get through to someone having a bad day and there is no excuse for that. Similarly there's no excuse being rude or abusive to the advisor on the end of the phone or over the desk just because you are frustrated that HMRC are not working quick enough or have made a mistake.

This website is for moneysaving and by the very nature of that the people who post on this forum want to make sure they don't pay more than they have to and so to those newbies reading this thread today or whenever please be assured that not all HMRC staff or accountants are incompetent or rude and it's usually only the people having problems who post here. People who have no problems with either tend not to need to post so you will always see a skewed view of HMRC.:o

sandx

Many thanks for those of you that helped to clarify one or two things to me and where I can find info about complaints. (And for deleting unhelpful comments too )

I would like to point out that when I did finally get through to HMRC (a Mr T of Bournemouth) I did make an effort to be courteous to him and he was very patient with me explaining things to me.