Pest phone calls from HMRC?

30 June - Had any of these recently? Someone from HMRC leaves a phone message - usually the collector or debt recovery - so you politely call them back and once you have dozed through a series of recorded messages, and been on hold for 5 minutes plus, someone then picks up the call and gives you the third degree! How dare you have the audacity to phone Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs? Who are you - can you prove it? Who is your client? On what authority are you calling? Can you verify your clients personal details? etc etc. Somewhere in the middle of all this you manage to mumble that you're only returning their call and would prefer not to be treated like trash or a criminal, but that bit usually gets lost in the exchange.

I had one of the worse cases today. Again, I was clearly asking for trouble when I returned the call, but what the heck, we're here to help our clients. In this case it was a company client, but the tax file has a completely out of date registered office address, so no wonder the tax demands weren't getting through. Unable to quote the company address I was told that they wouldn't be able to talk to me. "But I'm only returning your call", I replied. Sorry, we can't talk to you (but you are, I thought). "OK, forget it. If it's important I'm sure you'll call again." Sorry, we only call once. "Fine by me. You won't call again and you have the wrong address so you can't contact the company." Sounds like a win-win to me! And no, you can go to ..., I'm not going to give you the company's correct address. End of conversation. Am I turning into a grumpy old man or is HMRC staffed by idiots?