Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to contact HMRC by phone... correct?

Alan_Cross

At least, that's what I'm finding.

Anyone else caught up in this total misery?

agrinnall

Not in any way correct. You just need to choose the right time of day and if possible avoid certain times of the year, this being one of them.

Alan_Cross

Six working days running trying to call about self assessment. The phone put down after listening to muzak for 30mins plus on each occasion.

Not acceptable Osborne. The end of any prospect of my voting for your useless crowd.

TheCyclingProgrammer

HMRC are understaffed. It goes without saying that January is probably their busiest time of the year. Do it months early...it's much less stressful!

chrismac1

HMRC are rubbish for 90% of the year and the other 10% they are worse than rubbish. The official statistics are that on average 35% of callers during 2014 waited over 10 minutes just to get their calls answered, and nearly half of those were cut off completely before being dealt with at all.

See one of my other posts in the last week or so for the best times to try calling these jokers.

jem16

Alan_Cross wrote: »

Six working days running trying to call about self assessment. The phone put down after listening to muzak for 30mins plus on each occasion.

Best time to call is 7:45am.

mgdavid

Alan_Cross wrote: »

Six working days running trying to call about self assessment. The phone put down after listening to muzak for 30mins plus on each occasion.

Not acceptable Osborne. The end of any prospect of my voting for your useless crowd.

what a stupid comment, quite frightening that you even have a vote.
a) why have you left it until the eleventh hour?
b) why not follow the advice on MSE and phone first thing in the morning?

For balance, I called a few weeks before Christmas, straight through to somebody after navigating the auto-menu, problem sorted, 3 tax codes changed, new coding notices received within 4 working days.
Job's a good-un.

chrismac1

In my view Alan's comments are perfectly reasonable, is it really too much too ask in the 21st century that someone picks up the phone within the first couple of minutes - a real person? By comparison, the leading UK provider of tax software - Taxcalc - is currently answering the phone in 30 seconds despite being under similar pressures.

Alan is not alone. HMRC figures state that of 11 million UK SA returns, 5 million had not been submitted by the end of 2014.

Another strategy worth considering is to file something - ANY OLD DRIVEL - by 31 January. Then you have filed on time, so no £100 penalty. You then have until 31 Jan 16 to re-submit, in February you can get your queries sorted out whilst dealing with normal - still rubbish but at least not worse than rubbish - HMRC phone lines.

In my view HMRC opearate a "fine first, ask questions later" policy. So I have no ethical issues about operating a "file first, ask questions later" policy where absolutely necessary. When doing this I always use the "white space" on the return to highlight whatever deficiencies there are in what I am submitting, so in Alan's case I would have no hesitation in citing "dismal HMRC phone service" in the white space.

Pennywise

Alan_Cross wrote: »

Not acceptable Osborne. The end of any prospect of my voting for your useless crowd.

Funny that I can't remember it being any better under the previous useless crowd of Blair and Brown either?

HMRC being useless is nothing to do with politics - they're useless whoever is in power!

chrismac1

It does not have to be like this. When I first qualified in 1991 you dealt with knowledgeable local folk not impersonal phone lines staffed from recruitment drives at the London Zoo monkey cage. So in general even tricky queries were sorted out within a month, whereas in 2015 it takes HMRC longer than a month just to open a letter and if you get tricky queries sorted out within 6 months you consider that to be a result.

A few years ago I dealt with the Revenue Service of Ireland on a tricky VAT issue, the amount of VAT involved being over £250k. In the UK I promise you this would have taken at least 2 months to resolve normally.

The Revenue Service of Ireland answered their phone within 2 minutes and it was a real person. She did not know the answer, but took my details and assured me someone would get back to me within 2 days. Later that same day someone got back to me and gave me the opinion of the RS of I on the VAT issue. When asked if she would put this in writing she said "Yes" and sent me an e-mail within an hour. Job done, client happy to place a £1m contract knowing we were not going to be hammered for VAT.

I am sure Pennywise and others will confirm that this sort of service is unthinkable from HMRC. How can it be that the UK tax service is MILES, MILES, MILES worse than Ireland's?

purdyoaten

chrismac1 wrote: »

I am sure Pennywise and others will confirm that this sort of service is unthinkable from HMRC. How can it be that the UK tax service is MILES, MILES, MILES worse than Ireland's?

The service is bad enough on the dedicated agents number - I cannot begin to imagine what it is like on the main number. A gradual deterioration of service over the last twenty-five years (round about when I left :rotfl:)

It really is bad.

Re ROI service - I can concur - different approach altogether. Quick turnaround of everything but the downside is the greater resources to carry out investigations - and they do!