Yahoo Finance Hunt urged to tackle ‘unacceptably poor service’ at HMRC
Jeremy Hunt has been urged to end the “unacceptably poor service” at HMRC as the taxman grapples with a year and a half-long backlog of cases.
The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) called on the Chancellor to accelerate plans to improve the tax office amid growing frustration about poor service and long delays.
HMRC is currently grappling with an 18-month backlog of taxpayer correspondence and mounting delays as thousands of staff continue to work from home.
The ACCA, which represents 98,000 accountants across the UK, said this was creating huge problems for its members.
It said in its letter to the Chancellor: “It is difficult to overstate levels of concern and frustration being experienced by a substantial proportion of our members in their contact with HMRC.”
Over half of ACCA’s accountants blamed HMRC for hurting the productivity of their business.
Accountants have complained that HMRC’s phone line is plagued with long waiting times, poor record keeping and inexperienced call handlers unable to resolve queries.
Poor communication has meant that businesses have had to wait months, even years, for HMRC to provide answers to questions about their finances.
Call waiting times now exceed more than 20 minutes on average and ACCA said addressing long phone delays and providing regular case updates would “significantly reduce confusion and frustration”.
In a letter to the Chancellor, the ACCA said: “In your Autumn Statement last year, you highlighted that ‘a strong economy depends on strong public services’.
“This is as true for the role played by HMRC as other public services, yet we have seen no substantial improvements since this statement.”
The open letter, made public on Monday, blamed the crisis on a lack of investment needed to improve customer services.
The ACCA urged Mr Hunt to use Wednesday’s Autumn Statement to announce further funding to help resolve cases quicker.
Glen Collins, ACCA’s head of technical and strategic engagement, said: “People just want some clarity as to when we might see some dramatic improvement and actually some of that investment in HMRC is very important in delivering that.
“We’d like to see the Chancellor investing in HMRC to make sure the rest of the UK economy benefits from it.”
It also suggested that the taxman should hand over simple tasks to accountants to save more time, such as allowing them to change tax codes on employee payslips.
A Treasury source said that the Autumn Statement was not expected to contain plans to address the HMRC backlog.
The tax office announced plans in July to create a special taskforce to deal with thousands of letters that have been left unanswered for more than a year.
An HMRC spokesman said: “We are facing increasing demand, which we will meet by helping and encouraging more people to use our online services, which can answer queries quickly and easily without the need to wait on the phone or write to us.
“This will free up our expert advisors to help those who really need one-to-one support – those with complex queries, the digitally excluded, the particularly vulnerable. The ACCA knows this and, through the agents they represent, can play a valuable role in driving change.”
