Scathing Public Accounts Committee report about HMRC

DRS1

I have to admit that when you are hanging on waiting to speak to a human it is extremely frustrating when the automated voice comes on telling you how much information can be found online and why don't you hang up and go to Gov.uk.

CaptainSkeptical

Don't hold your breath for any positive change.  The Guardian quotes HMRC’s chief executive, Jim Harra, as saying  “The committee’s claims about our customer service are completely baseless."  It's heartening to see that he's listening and responding to concerns from our elected members !! 

SnowMan

The experience where there clearly isn't the information online is as follows

You use their online chat, and they invariably given you a generic link that doesn't help. When you explain this and say can you chat with an adviser who can help, you then most of the time in my experience get a message saying "Our advisers are not available to discuss your query at the moment."

If you ring up their helpline it is very difficult to get through and you are often cut off mid call when you do, or the adviser can't help with your query when you do get through.

yorkiechick

As a tax agent, it's equally frustrating. Pre-pandemic the agent line would be answered within 5 minutes, you would actually get through to a knowledgeable person and queries sorted straight away. 

Now it's potluck as to whether the person on the phone can/will do what we ask, 90% of the time we are more knowledgeable than the person on the phone. We get told to do things online, but they rarely work leading us to have to call. 

The amount of incorrect information we have been told over the phone is frightening, and they expect the average Joe to know enough to get their tax right. 

Albermarle

eskbanker said:

sheramber said:

In many cases people do not trust online and want the reassurance of speaking to a person. 

....which is ironic when verbal guidance from underpaid, underinformed and undermotivated customer service agents is so often less accurate and reliable than what's published online!  Not just talking about HMRC, but many other businesses too....

So maybe when they replace the customer service agents with AI, it should improve, maybe.....

uknick

As an "upside" for certain unscrupulous individuals, less staff means less checking.  I'm aware of a few individuals and Ltd companies who have submitted tax returns understating their liability and they have yet to be challenged.

For example, 3 years ago I saw an IHT submission which included the deduction for an undocumented loan to the estate amounting to nearly 20% of the estate value bringing the taxable value of the estate to just a few thousand £.  One would have thought this should have been checked.

Whilst HMRC have now decide to take action, companies claiming ridiculous R&D tax credits amounting to hundreds of thousands of £.  HMRC's action?  Send out a letter to companies that have been paid sending asking if they think their claim was valid!!

I'm going to assume the HMRC management produced some costings which indicated evaded taxes do not exceed the staff savings.

MetaPhysical

The complexity of the tax system, with its thresholds, tapers and allowances is such that people who in the past had no need to complete a tax return now routinely need to do one these days.  It is so annoying when on hold for 60 minutes the recorded on-hold announcement goes on about "you can do X,Y,Z online".  Yes, I know you can, but my query is not covered by online resources and I need to SPEAK to someone, you know, actually communicate with a real living person like we have been doing for the past 200000 years!. 

The government have not invested enough in HMRC and staff to accomodate the complexity is has created.

zagfles

eskbanker said:

PensionsQuery said:

37 millions calls is a staggering amount, especially given the wealth of information available online.

It's only going to get worse, too, given the mixture of ever increasing complexity and fiscal drag.

I found this chart showing call volumes and waiting times over previous years - the 2023/24 volumes actually dropped slightly from the previous year, and are a long way below historical highs, but answering times have deteriorated badly if 23 minutes is the current average:


https://www.taxwatchuk.org/telephone-hmrc-customer-service/

If HMRC asserts that 66% of calls could have been dealt with online instead, the question that obviously needs to be asked is why they weren't, which presumably says more about their online offering than a reluctance on behalf of the taxpayers to use what ought to be a simpler alternative....

So the rapid increase in response times occurred around 2020, wonder what could have caused that? Wonder why response times this decade are so much worse than last decade despite call volumes being significantly lower?