Help with Inland Revenue problem, please.

Cook_County

Boys and girls, lets calm down!

Orsen is obviously not familiar with HMRCs systems.

Civil servants on the other hand who describe their pay as "measly" are probably overlooking the generous benefits they get on top of their base pay.

There is a middle ground.

Orsen is upset that his tax life is a muddle. He could, for example, arrange to meet an Inspector at an office local to him who - if the meeting is arranged in advance - will have all of the paperwork in front of her/him. This service is available free of charge if Orsen asks nicely, like a good boy.

HMRC are still massively overstaffed because efiling is not what it should be (HMRC still employ more peole than the entire US Internal Revenue Service although America's population is 3 times ours and 98% of Americans file tax returns each year compared to about a third of the UK population). But that is just my view, and indeed making political points will get Orsen no-where at all. HMRC have an ombudsperson who can be complained to ultimately if Orsen follows a reasonable path...

Can we go outside to play now?

0rsen

Pam. Do you honestly think that my situation is fair? Why should I have to have this to worry about? In 7 months, not even the courtesy of a letter telling me how things are progressing. If you ran a business this way, it would go bust. This matter has already been resolved once, so why all the delay? It is not an involved case. I haven't been unhelpful. I sent them photocopies of all my last correspondence, 30 items (also unacknowledged, so I can't be sure they got there) It is only now that I am beginning to become angry.
I have just had my wage slip for this month, and once more almost a quarter of my wage taken in tax.
Cook County has summed this up nicely.
This is a disgrace.

System

No Orsen I don't think it's fair and as I said before complain This link will tell you the HMRC way to complain.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageContactUs_ShowContent&propertyType=document&resetCT=true&id=HMCE_PROD1_025307#P4_20

I think everybody should pester their MP's that's the only way you are going to get the government to realise that they have put HMRC in meltdown and get any improvement in customer service.

As I said before it used to be that all post had to be actioned within 15 working days. That didn't mean wasting time sending out a letter to say "yes we have received your letter" that meant dealing with the query in hand or asking for further information from the customer to help resolve their query.

That 15 day target is no longer achievable and your letters are probably sitting in a stockpile of letters from other equally frustrated taxpayers still waiting to be read.

However I agree with Cook County. Make an appointment with your local HMRC Equiry Centre there are lots of pleasant well informed staff there who can look at your case and hopefully resolve it sooner for you.

Cook County whilst the Civil Service may be overstaffed as someone working in an Enquiry Centre I can tell you it is one of our jobs to extol the virtues of e-filing and infact using the HMRC website to obtain information. We have some computers in our centre just for that purpose but the visiting public, young and old, are by and large resistant to this and in my experience see it as me and my colleagues trying to avoid having to deal with them.

The only way I see this changing is by introducing some sort of class in school which will educate our young people on their options/responsibilities as taxpayers. It is not in the publics interest to remove the staff before the public start using the services. I think the most telling result of this governments changes is the fact that we have to have security guards on hand to deal with the increasing numbers of frustrated and abusive customers who walk through our doors. Our hardworking NHS staff face similar problems through successive governments meddling too.

On a personal note, in my job I am expected to have a broad spectrum of knowledge (which I do) to deal with the huge variety of differing queries I am asked to deal with. The only perks I see are a very satisfying job (I love it), limited access to flexi-time (due to our opening hours) and a pension which I'm sure some government will amend between now and 2025 when I turn 65 if I haven't been made redundant by then. My salary however is low despite my job related skills and knowledge.

To be honest my pay and conditions were better when I worked in the Halifax call centre a few years ago although I found it boring. And when I worked for M&S when my kids were small the perks were better. All jobs have their good and bad points, high and low salaries etc and we have the right to chose to accept those or move on and get another job. I chose to accept mine but I don't need remarks like "I pay your/their salary". As I said my husband and I are taxpayers too.


Ok so this is looking more like an essay than a post, so I'm coming out to play now.

Hoddie_2

Cook_County wrote: »

HMRC are still massively overstaffed because efiling is not what it should be (HMRC still employ more peole than the entire US Internal Revenue Service although America's population is 3 times ours and 98% of Americans file tax returns each year compared to about a third of the UK population).

To be fair Cook_County the IRS doesn't have as large a mandate as HMRC. To my knowledge it is purely a tax collection and admininstration organisation. I might be wrong but do they protect their borders, tackle organised crime (even with the advent of SOCA, HMRC still plays a role), deal with any social benefits (HMRC pay at least 3 to my knowledge) or help administer other social benefits (HMRC work closely with the DWP on all NIC-related benefits), or deal with anything like the National Minimum Wage or Student Loans. I would also wager that our tax system in the UK is more convoluted than in the US.

The reduction in staff at HMRC is resulting in an uneven playing field. Their compliance departments are focussing more and more on those who attempt to evade large amounts of tax, while allowing small-scale (but still large enough to shock most UK citizens) evasion through the net.

0rsen

Well, this situation is obviously much worse than I thought. I have just tried to contact the Inland Revenue office by phone, but I was unable to get through because of the high volume of calls. I have decided that, things being as they are, I shall just sit back and wait a little longer. It justs angers me that there is no communication. Not only that, the money I have overpaid would be of more use to me right now, while I am taking a holiday, than some time in the future.
Anyway, thanks for all the input, and, if nothing else, I have let off some steam

Hoddie_2

There's no guarantee that HMRC have even received what you've sent them, which would make Royal Mail the ones at fault here. This is precisely the reason that I urged you not to complain until the issues were sorted out, as you'd have a much clearer picture of what's happened.

If you cannot get through on the phone, call in at an Enquiry Centre if you're able to. Normally you'd need an appointment so they may not be able to see you, but they'll be able to direct you to a telephone which 'jumps the queue' and connects you to the contact centre within seconds.

System

Hoddie wrote: »

If you cannot get through on the phone, call in at an Enquiry Centre if you're able to. Normally you'd need an appointment so they may not be able to see you, but they'll be able to direct you to a telephone which 'jumps the queue' and connects you to the contact centre within seconds.

Unfortunately that isn't necessarily true at the moment either. For some reason the priority given to dedicated enquiry centre phones seems to have disappeared. TCO calls from our enquiry centre are particularly difficult to get through. It also seems that calls made re PAYE and SA are incurring a long wait too.

0rsen

i

Hoddie wrote: »

There's no guarantee that HMRC have even received what you've sent them, which would make Royal Mail the ones at fault here. This is precisely the reason that I urged you not to complain until the issues were sorted out, as you'd have a much clearer picture of what's happened.

If you cannot get through on the phone, call in at an Enquiry Centre if you're able to. Normally you'd need an appointment so they may not be able to see you, but they'll be able to direct you to a telephone which 'jumps the queue' and connects you to the contact centre within seconds.

Thanks, Hoddie. I specifically sent the P161 by recorded delivery, so, hopefully, they have received it. I have tried to check on the Royal Mail tracking site, but it is not functioning correctly at the moment.