HMRC plans ANOTHER closure of its self-assessment helpline as officials are grilled by Treasury Select Committee

HMRC says it will close its self-assessment helpline again after a trial in the summer, which was widely criticized by accountants and entrepreneurs.

It comes as the Treasury Select Committee this afternoon questioned senior HMRC officials and board members as part of its ongoing investigation into the taxman’s work.

In June, the tax office announced it would close the self-assessment helpline for three months to try to redirect queries from the helpline to the department’s digital services.

It is said to be testing a ‘seasonal model’ as the helpline receives fewer calls during the summer. But HMRC gave taxpayers just two days’ notice before closing for the entire summer.

HMRC plans another closure of its self-assessment helpline despite widespread criticism

This is Money has heard from a number of readers affected by the sudden closure of the self-assessment helpline.

We revealed that a woman was hit with fines worth hundreds of pounds for late tax returns, despite not being self-employed for four years.

After six months of trying to resolve the problem, she tried calling the self-assessment line but found it was closed for the summer.

Speaking to the Treasury Committee, Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s second permanent secretary, said: ‘We have decided that we are going to trial a seasonal model.

‘We had put a lot of work into preparing for the trial, but it took us some time to decide on the communication, which meant we were a little late in communicating to customers.

“It was absolutely not part of the plan (to give the public two days’ notice),” she added.

“By the time we had managed to work our way through all the stakeholders we needed to talk to internally, the time we should ideally have had to communicate further had run out.”

Former Virgin Money boss Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, who is now an HMRC board member, said the board was “aware of the plan” for the closure but “was not aware that communication had been delayed in the way it had ‘ used to be.

The outcome of the helpline’s summer closure is likely to be published in the new year, but initial reports indicate that customer satisfaction has fallen significantly.

In a letter to the committee, HMRC chief executive Jim Harra said customer satisfaction for the online services helpdesk fell from 29.4 per cent to 24.7 per cent year-on-year.

Satisfaction with the self-assessment web chat also decreased, from 76.2 percent to 70.1 percent year-on-year.

He said this is likely a “temporary phenomenon during the time it took to increase capacity there.”

Addressing the committee on Wednesday, Harra said: “The demand for the online services helpline exceeded our expectations. Initially, during our process, we did not have enough advisors on that helpline to meet the demand.

“Without running the trial, (predicting demand) was essentially a gamble. The demand for occupational safety and health was greater than we expected, so we had to train and deploy additional consultants.

‘In the first period of the trial, this meant a poorer service level for that helpline and therefore lower customer satisfaction. As the trial progressed, we added more resources and customer satisfaction increased.”

Although HMRC has not yet completed its review of the pilot closure, MacDonald said they are planning further completion of the self-assessment closure.

HMRC did not respond when asked when the closure might take place, or whether it would be before the January deadline for submitting self-assessments.

Harra added that HMRC ‘do not have the resources to deliver customer service standards through the traditional channels of telephone and post’ and therefore they need to ‘reduce contact demand and move it to digital self-service.’

‘The challenge is becoming increasingly difficult. An increasing number of taxpayers means increasing contact. We don’t have increasing resources’.

We have contacted HMRC for comment.

Are you a frustrated HMRC employee or a business owner who has been left in the dark? Email editor@thisismoney.co.uk with HMRC in the subject line