How to speak to HMRC nowadays?

MetaPhysical

kempiejon said:

@pecunianonolet Your tax office might be different to mine, there is a general address

Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1AS

I have tried that as well.  No reply at all from them.
It is absolutely and utterly pathetic and disgusting that the government's own revenue raising agency is a faceless monster that is uncontactable and yet they can fine you and you cannot get a hold of them when you need help.

pecunianonolet

I do not want to get political at all, although I hold strong opinions about many matters, but maybe this would be something for Martin to quiz the parties on to raise awareness that it needs changing urgently. Get agents to respond to chat messages, open hotlines Monday - Friday until 8pm, open hotlines on Saturday. 

sheramber

pecunianonolet said:

I do not want to get political at all, although I hold strong opinions about many matters, but maybe this would be something for Martin to quiz the parties on to raise awareness that it needs changing urgently. Get agents to respond to chat messages, open hotlines Monday - Friday until 8pm, open hotlines on Saturday. 

Until the government provide more money to en=mploy more staff that is not going to happen.

Where do you think HMRC get the money to employ  staff?  

Phones lines used to be open until 8 pm but cuts in staff numbers brought that to an end.

When I worked there Gordon Brown declared that HMRC had to cut the staff by 10%.  That resulted in the loss of many  experienced people as most took  redundancy.

pecunianonolet

Managed to get through today after a staggering 70 min wait (including like almost 10 min of automated bla bla)

Hoenir

Having a Personal Tax Account is the answer. Made the whole process seamless. 

kempiejon

Hoenir said:

Having a Personal Tax Account is the answer. Made the whole process seamless. 

I have heard this. I've noticed that changes to tax codes overpayments etc with PAYE is at their whim but does eventually wash out OK. 

Bea63

I'm in the same situation..I made an innocent mistake completing pension amount online... tried to go back into online account only to be informed they have received my info but won't let me edit....am sure they will find a way to inform me that I've made an error and owe them back tax but its infuriating to not be able to speak to a human and explain😫

Hoenir

kempiejon said:

Hoenir said:

Having a Personal Tax Account is the answer. Made the whole process seamless. 

I have heard this. I've noticed that changes to tax codes overpayments etc with PAYE is at their whim but does eventually wash out OK. 

Every large organisation uses work queues to process volumes these days. Every large organisation suffers during holidays or where there's absence due to sickness. Techonology can only do so much. Far more efficient than it was in the past. First world problems one might say. 

Albermarle

Hoenir said:

Having a Personal Tax Account is the answer. Made the whole process seamless. 

I currently have a regular pension with a standard code 1257 and pay a small amount of tax each month.
I took a small pot pension ( under the small pot rule ) 25% tax free and BR/20% for the rest. All good.
Provider sent P45 and I could see on my personal tax account that it was clear that this was a one off payment and the 'employment ended' So all good.
Then received a completely new tax code for K a few thousand and my next regular payment was halved.
The system had taken my one off payment and multiplied it by 12, giving me a estimated salary of > £100K, even though it was on their own system that the 'employment' had stopped. 
As the employment was stopped it was not possible to change the estimated income on line.
Only possibility to sort it out was to call them as the online chat just kept saying go to your personal tax account.

So definitely not seamless !

[Deleted User]

Albermarle said:

Hoenir said:

Having a Personal Tax Account is the answer. Made the whole process seamless. 

I currently have a regular pension with a standard code 1257 and pay a small amount of tax each month.
I took a small pot pension ( under the small pot rule ) 25% tax free and BR/20% for the rest. All good.
Provider sent P45 and I could see on my personal tax account that it was clear that this was a one off payment and the 'employment ended' So all good.
Then received a completely new tax code for K a few thousand and my next regular payment was halved.
The system had taken my one off payment and multiplied it by 12, giving me a estimated salary of > £100K, even though it was on their own system that the 'employment' had stopped. 
As the employment was stopped it was not possible to change the estimated income on line.
Only possibility to sort it out was to call them as the online chat just kept saying go to your personal tax account.

So definitely not seamless !

This happened to my wife who receives her pension twice a year. As above, HMRC assumed the first payment was going to be received every month. She simply changed the estimated annual income amount to what was actually going to be received and that was that!

Took a few seconds!