HMRC attacked for slashing number of tax helplines

The UK tax authority has been condemned for a “misguided” decision to slash the number of its public helplines, with warnings that millions of taxpayers could face “long waiting times and lots of hassle”.

HM Revenue & Customs on Tuesday announced that starting next month it would permanently cut the number of telephone lines available to provide taxpayers with help for self-assessment tax returns, VAT and pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) issues.

“Online services have transformed our lives and often provide a better service for managing tax — they’re quicker, easier and always available,” said Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s second permanent secretary and deputy chief executive.

Changing the services to encourage taxpayers to “self-serve” online would allow HMRC to focus support where it was most needed, she added.

However, in a sharply worded response, the Chartered Institute of Taxation, a professional body, denounced the move calling it “misguided” and said it “strongly criticised” the decision.

CIOT president Gary Ashford said he was “deeply dismayed” by the news and the decision had been made “in the light of . . . inconclusive evaluation”.

“There’s no escaping the fact that tax is complicated, and people sometimes need reassurance that what they are doing is right,” he added.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales warned the cuts would lead to taxpayers facing “long waiting times and lots of hassle”.

HMRC said the self-assessment helpline would close this year from April 8 to September 30 before reopening between October and March for “priority queries” only, with closures to follow similar dates in subsequent years.

Meanwhile, the VAT helpline will be permanently closed apart from five business days each month leading up to and including the VAT submission deadline, while the PAYE helpline will no longer take calls relating to refunds.

Harriett Baldwin, a conservative MP and chair of the Treasury select committee, said: “It is a great shame that HMRC have decided now is the time to essentially close down any avenues for people to contact them over the phone for huge parts of the year.”

Taxpayers should not be forced into using online services “until there is evidence that people know how to do their taxes on HMRC’s incredibly complex website”, she added.

Last month, MPs on the Commons public accounts committee criticised the tax authority’s “unacceptable” customer service and called on the government to increase resources for HMRC.

At the end of last year, HMRC’s chief executive Jim Harra told MPs that the tax office needed to reduce the volume of its contact with the public via phone and post by at least 30 per cent of 2021-22 levels by 2025 if it was to deliver its services with the resources it had.

Ashford said that “unless and until automated digital services can be radically improved, HMRC must be provided with the resources to provide all year round, well-publicised help and advice to taxpayers from a human adviser over phone and webchat”.

Senga Prior, chair of the technical steering group at the Association of Taxation Technicians, another professional body, called the decision to close the VAT helpline for most of the year “baffling”.

“This is effectively encouraging taxpayers to leave their VAT tax compliance until the last minute, and flies in the face of HMRC’s previous work to promote early filing,” she said.

HMRC declined to comment.