How to speak to HMRC nowadays?

Albermarle

[Deleted User] said:

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!

As explained, because it was a one off small pot withdrawal ( that closed the pension) , the pension provider issued me and HMRC with a P45.
So on my personal tax account it said that source of income/employment ( as they term it) had ended. In which case it was just not possible to change the estimated income in the same way you can with a still live source of income.

pecunianonolet

If you are in employment you can change that bit online. Got a work bonus paid in May and instantly a tax code change as they projected this would be now the regular income for the next 12 months (which I wouldn't mind  ) so had to go into the app and change that.