HMRC says taxpayers should ‘help themselves’ by using online services

HM Revenue & Customs has admitted that the level of customer service for taxpayers who use the telephone or post to reach it remains ‘below service standards’.

HMRC said an increase in the number of taxpayers and a higher number of people with complex queries was impacting postal and telephone services.

In the 2022 to 2023 tax year, HMRC said it improved the proportion of correspondence it turned around in 15 days to 72.7 per cent, compared to 45.5 per cent the year before.

In its latest performance update, HMRC said more taxpayers could ‘help themselves’ by using its online services.

The proportion of callers who wanted to speak to an HMRC adviser by telephone and were able to do so averaged 71.4 per cent between October and December 2023.

While HMRC admits it needs to do more to improve its telephone and postal services, it said there is ‘more scope for our customers to help themselves’ by using its online services.

It said: ‘More than 3 million of the calls we received between 2022 and 2023 were about just three things that can be easily done online: resetting a password, getting your PAYE tax code and finding your national insurance number. It takes the equivalent of 500 advisors to answer these calls.

‘It means that the people who really need to speak to an HMRC adviser – including those with complex questions, the digitally excluded and the particularly vulnerable – may struggle to get the help they need.

‘The only way we can meet that level of service for customers who really want to speak to us is by further improving and expanding our digital and online services and continuing to encourage even more people to use them.’

HMRC aims to reduce the volume of telephone and postal contact by taxpayers by 30 per cent by the end of 2025, compared to levels at the end of 2022.

In the financial year 2022 to 2023, HMRC collected £788.8 billion in taxes, an increase of 10.2 percent on the previous year.

HMRC said taxpayers’ money is ‘spent by the government on schools, the NHS, police and other essential services we all depend on.’

HMRC claimed that its compliance work during the period generated £34 billion in tax revenue, which would otherwise have been lost to the Treasury through errors, fraud and other forms of non-compliance.

It added: ‘We are focused on delivering a modern, efficient service that makes it easier to pay tax and harder to make mistakes.

‘That means improving guidance and improving and expanding our digital services – online through Gov.uk and via the app – to give customers the fast and easy ways to manage their tax affairs that they expect.’

According to HMRC, there were 80 million logins to the HMRC app by 3.3 million unique users between January and December 2023, representing login growth of more than 70 percent compared to the previous year.

It claimed that the number of ‘interactions with digital assistants’ increased from 1.9 million in 2022 to 2023 to 4.8 million so far in 2023 to 2024.

This is Money has identified the problems faced by taxpayers who struggle to contact HMRC or face unexpectedly high tax bills.

Service levels drop dramatically during the pandemic.

A Public Accounts Committee report published last year found that postal and telephone call handling fell significantly during the pandemic.

In 2021-2022, HMRC responded to 39.5 percent of mail within 15 days, compared to 70.3 percent the year before.