HMRC has said it is making ‘tough decisions now’, following the announcement of budget cuts in last month’s spending review, to ensure that resources are ‘more effectively focused on collecting revenue and providing better services for taxpayers’.
Agent Update 20 reports that HMRC has increased to 40 the number of Agent Account Managers (AAMs), whose role is to ‘help tax agents and advisers deal with the department more effectively’.
AAMs were introduced in 2007. Forty officers based throughout the UK will ‘provide an escalation route where you have been unable to find an answer through the usual channels for example – HMRC web guidance, Agent Dedicated or Priority Lines and writing to the relevant HMRC Office’.
The service includes an Agents' Issue Resolution Service, a ‘streamlined process to resolve ongoing problems more quickly’. Further guidance is available on the HMRC website.
The ICAEW Tax Faculty’s practitioner tax manager, Philippa Stedman, has agreed to undertake a short-term secondment to HMRC’s Business Customer Unit, the Faculty reported.
The stated objectives include providing ICAEW with a better understanding of how HMRC does business with agents and taxpayers, while helping HMRC to have a better understanding of tax practitioners’ experiences and how HMRC’s services can be developed and improved.
The Agent Update also includes guidance on the increase in the VAT rate from 4 January, and details of changes to the HMRC manuals. Improved Employer Compliance guidance, which HMRC staff are now using in place of the Employer Compliance Handbook (ECH), will be available on the HMRC website from the end of November, when the ECH will be withdrawn.
HMRC has said it is making ‘tough decisions now’, following the announcement of budget cuts in last month’s spending review, to ensure that resources are ‘more effectively focused on collecting revenue and providing better services for taxpayers’.
Agent Update 20 reports that HMRC has increased to 40 the number of Agent Account Managers (AAMs), whose role is to ‘help tax agents and advisers deal with the department more effectively’.
AAMs were introduced in 2007. Forty officers based throughout the UK will ‘provide an escalation route where you have been unable to find an answer through the usual channels for example – HMRC web guidance, Agent Dedicated or Priority Lines and writing to the relevant HMRC Office’.
The service includes an Agents' Issue Resolution Service, a ‘streamlined process to resolve ongoing problems more quickly’. Further guidance is available on the HMRC website.
The ICAEW Tax Faculty’s practitioner tax manager, Philippa Stedman, has agreed to undertake a short-term secondment to HMRC’s Business Customer Unit, the Faculty reported.
The stated objectives include providing ICAEW with a better understanding of how HMRC does business with agents and taxpayers, while helping HMRC to have a better understanding of tax practitioners’ experiences and how HMRC’s services can be developed and improved.
The Agent Update also includes guidance on the increase in the VAT rate from 4 January, and details of changes to the HMRC manuals. Improved Employer Compliance guidance, which HMRC staff are now using in place of the Employer Compliance Handbook (ECH), will be available on the HMRC website from the end of November, when the ECH will be withdrawn.
