Closure of Self-Assessment helpline ‘cry for help’
The temporary closure of one of the most-used taxpayer helplines suggests ‘a cry for help in a desperate situation’ says the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
HMRC has today announced1 that from Monday it will close the Self-Assessment Helpline for three months,2 directing taxpayers to its digital services instead. They say this will free up 350 full time equivalent advisers to take urgent calls on other lines and answer correspondence.
CIOT President Gary Ashford said:
“This looks like a cry for help in a desperate situation.
“It is simply wrong that people trying to get help from HMRC to pay the right amount of tax find it so difficult to get the support they need – and this latest announcement gives little information as to how they are supposed to get that support, especially those who cannot interact digitally. By shutting down one of the best used helplines for the summer, HMRC is putting up a further barrier to people being able to easily get their tax right, eroding a fundamental principle of HMRC’s own Charter.
“This is another clear indicator that HMRC can’t cope with everything it is being tasked to do, and simply cannot meet the demands of a growing and ever more complex tax system.
“We have repeatedly called for HMRC to be adequately resourced to provide the services needed by taxpayers.3 Businesses are unable to operate while waiting for HMRC registrations, and individuals are left many months waiting for their tax repayments, because HMRC don’t have the resources they need to deal with such matters promptly or effectively.”
The Self-Assessment helpline receives around 5 million calls each year, with nearly 4 million people staying on through the recorded messages to speak to an HMRC adviser.4 In the period June to August 2022, broadly the equivalent of this year’s period of closure, nearly 1.2 million people called the helpline, with over 900,000 people staying on to try to speak to someone.
Gary Ashford continued:
“Today’s announcement effectively says to around a million of HMRC’s customers that they are on their own. Not only is this appalling customer service, but the timing is remarkable, having just encouraged taxpayers to submit their Self-Assessment return early.5
“The announcement is almost silent on what people should do where they would otherwise have had to phone HMRC, such as to chase an overdue repayment, or to remove themselves from Self-Assessment. While HMRC are increasing the advisers available on webchat and some other helplines, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers will simply be left out in the cold, not knowing what to do or who to speak to.
“The fact that HMRC has had to take such drastic measures, to try to recover to an acceptable level of service, just exemplifies the need for a rethink on changes such as Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment, where we are not yet seeing delivery of a system any time soon which would enable even the most digitally able to self-serve without support, made all the more worrying with this latest cut to HMRC customer service.”
