Ministers must set up an emergency taskforce to tackle the unacceptable backlog at HMRC, which has hindered growth, the ICAEW chartered accountancy body has said.
A cross-sector emergency taskforce should be charged with identifying areas for support to end delays and recommending to HMRC improvements to service standards to enable business growth, the ICAEW said.
Taxpayers and accountants are having to wait up to a year for HMRC to respond to queries over the phone or by post, ICAEW said, while callers report that they have waited for more than an hour before being cut off.
Speaking to the BBC, Alan Pearce, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, described current HMRC service levels as ‘diabolical’. ‘The processing of information is too slow and that is holding up businesses being able to do their normal UK trade. It’s unacceptable for taxpayers, companies, their agents and the economy as a whole,’ Pearce said.
This is not the first time concerns have been raised over HMRC service levels. A report by the Public Accounts Committee, published in January, was highly critical of HMRC’s approach, noting that, in the last five years, HMRC has reduced its customer service staff numbers from 25,500 to 19,500. In June last year, in response to ‘considerable pressure from members’, the CIOT, ICAEW, ICAS and ATT wrote a joint letter to Myrtle Lloyd, director general for customer services at HMRC, expressing ‘long-standing concerns’ over customer service levels.
Ministers must set up an emergency taskforce to tackle the unacceptable backlog at HMRC, which has hindered growth, the ICAEW chartered accountancy body has said.
A cross-sector emergency taskforce should be charged with identifying areas for support to end delays and recommending to HMRC improvements to service standards to enable business growth, the ICAEW said.
Taxpayers and accountants are having to wait up to a year for HMRC to respond to queries over the phone or by post, ICAEW said, while callers report that they have waited for more than an hour before being cut off.
Speaking to the BBC, Alan Pearce, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, described current HMRC service levels as ‘diabolical’. ‘The processing of information is too slow and that is holding up businesses being able to do their normal UK trade. It’s unacceptable for taxpayers, companies, their agents and the economy as a whole,’ Pearce said.
This is not the first time concerns have been raised over HMRC service levels. A report by the Public Accounts Committee, published in January, was highly critical of HMRC’s approach, noting that, in the last five years, HMRC has reduced its customer service staff numbers from 25,500 to 19,500. In June last year, in response to ‘considerable pressure from members’, the CIOT, ICAEW, ICAS and ATT wrote a joint letter to Myrtle Lloyd, director general for customer services at HMRC, expressing ‘long-standing concerns’ over customer service levels.
