HMRC admits service levels ‘aren’t where we want them’
HMRC’s average call wait time has seesawed between 18 and 13 minutes and has failed to meet the pre-Covid target of under five minutes.
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They must include the calls they cut off as zero waiting time to get that average down as its regularly 30 minutes +
Was hanging on for 53 minutes before getting a human to talk to. Told her the problem & she said she would transfer me to the right unit. Luckily she gave me the number saying they were less busy than the main unit so I wouldn't have to wait so long. Two minutes later a recorded message said 'thanks for calling' & the line went dead...now been holding on for 20 minutes!
It got worse....after hanging on this time for 1 hour & 11 minutes with the recorded voice telling me that they valued my call & someone would answer me, the recorded voice suddenly said "Thank you for your call. Thank you for holding on. Goodbye" & the phone went dead. It happened again today after 1 hour & 11 minutes exactly! I was totally gobsmacked....I have now held on for nearly 41/2 hours in total without speaking to anyone about the actual problem which is rather important as it deals with the reinstatement of a client's VAT number who has now decided he wants to stay registered! Are HMRC getting a kickback from BT for these calls & are trying to up the time spent on the line to try & recoup Mr Sunak's ridiculous scheme to 'help' during the pandemic shutdown? Maybe he didn't know that real-time filing of new employees was available & that is why he stupidly allowed employers to sign up everybody including their bets (in some cases, I bet) rather than say this will only apply to staff on board PRIOR to the end of the previous month. And he wants to run the country!!! Try a whelk stall first Rishi.
If you have Twitter Account, complain to HMRC on: HMRC Customer Support
@HMRCcustomers
This will mean that some human will see your post and so will others who follow HMRC. Don't put any personal/client details, but you should get a response ....... I think
Unfortunately, I don't do twitter but will find someone who does .
If you have complaints, maybe you should sign up. It's a big ask to get someone to complain for you. It's up to you to take the responsibility. Put your own name to it and don't hide behind someone else.
Regretfully, from my experience, the Civil Service, in it's myriad forms, is unfit for purpose.
I had a heart attack, last December and major heart surgery, at the end of January. After a long recovery and rehabilitation I returned to work, at the beginning of May.
In the interim period and, after dealing with various departments, within the Dept for Work & Pensions, I secured a claim for ESA. I literally had to jump through hoops and, on many occasions, received completely false and unreliable information.
A client recently broke his ankle and, will also be away from his self-employed activities, for a period of at least 3 months. He mentioned that he'd been unable to claim ESA, as his Class 2 national insurance contributions, didn't count towards the claim! I explained that he should reapply and, on the second occasion, his claim was successful. It obviously depends on who you speak to?
Let's not forget that, most public sector employees can look forward to; six months fully paid sick-leave, with six-months on half pay.
The outcome of a recent HMRC late filing appeal was successful and the penalty was cancelled. This was followed by the client receiving a threatening letter from the DMU, the letter dated over a week after the acceptance of the appeal.
There are so many issues, which we can no longer overlook and, those who work in the civil service genuinely don't appreciate how fortunate they are. There is clearly, little pride in the work and absolutely no comprehension of how many people have no respect for this sector of the establishment. Basic training and a proper understanding of the topic, is obviously misguided.
The mantra 'we're experiencing high call volumes' wore thin, a long time ago.
Perhaps some humility and the removal of the description 'customer' (there ain't another shop available) might be a start.
For me, the public sector has rested on its laurels for far too long and, being blunt, needs a massive kick up the backside.
NB. Clearly, I know that I will be whistling in the wind with this, for a long time to come but, the 'service' is quite appalling.
I was about to make a similar point. The word 'literally' literally means literally, and I mean that literally not figuratively. It's a pet peeve.
Respectful apologies.
Literally, should clearly read; seemingly.
Again, respectful apologies.
How exactly are they measuring this? I would be delighted with just a 13 minute wait. I think I could cook an entire meal during some of the waiting times (and grow the ingredients whilst I wait for a postal response).
I'm literally on hold to them whilst catching up with AW! Only HMRC could be proud of the fact that they answer 78% of correspondence within 40 days! That's only 17% more than that which they answer within 15 days.
"The tax department has made some progress in improving its customer service levels" ... NO IT HASN'T.
I was about to launch into one of my analytical dissections of some of their stats - but that's to play their game (where interpreted/massaged data is more important than practical actions).
Time was that HMRC was respected if feared ... but now it is neither.
All politicians know (or eventually learn) that the worst thing that can happen to their potential future is to become a laughing stock in the eyes of the majority ... will HMRC eventually learn?
Kinda makes me wonder, given that HMRC are claiming improvement, why I spent 20 minutes waiting for an answer on the ADL this morning chasing up why they haven't yet processed reinvestment relief clawback comps that I sent to them in December 2021.
To be fair, when I posited to the agent on the phone that whoever looked at probably had no clue what to do with it, his reply was a non-committal, "hmm".
so where do I start ! Well I refuse to call HMRC as their staff are mostly rude , ignorant , condesending or lack knowledge in various combinations. Often you get cut off or they can't answer a question. The 64-8's are a complete joke and they often say they can't see one on file.
With writing in I never get a reply unless I threaten action or ask my local MP to get involved. I think they just open the post and hope you don't chase anything up.
With their pathetic computer programmes I would say that the rubbish produced causes more question than it answers.
MTD for ITSA is coming now and yet they can't cope with what they have let alone help anyone with a tax system doomed to failure.
What on earth is wrong with these people at HMRC . If they spent more time putting things right , listened more to them that use their service and stopped putting out false data and keep saying they could do better or they are sorry then things might improve.
This is what we pay our taxes for - clowns.
You ask 'What on earth is wrong with these people at HMRC'.
The answer is simple - HMRC decision makers are stuck in their Ivory Towers and have absolutely no contact with us in the real world, so never realise that their wonderful theoretical ideas on modernisation/ digitalisation etc don't always translate to anything actually workable in practice. Worse still they seem to ignore the feedback some accountants still bother to offer.
In the last two weeks I have contacted HMRC and the DWP in support of my aging parents. Whilst I had to wait quite a long time to get to a human in both instances I was dealt with in a very professional manner; the lady at HMRC in particular was very good when sorting out my parents' personal allowances.
When contacting HMRC a few months ago to understand how to proceed about amending personal allowances I was also dealt with in a professional manner. The adviser was able to tell me the current turn around time for deal with powers or attorney (quite short) and the relevant documents were turned around within that time.
In conclusion some customer facing pats of HMRC and DWP are working OK
But when you have to deal with them on a regular basis, all those ‘long waits’ to speak to someone can add up to quite a chunk of a working day. And much too frequently to be a coincidence, just as you get to the bit where an actual person answers, the call gets cut off and you either have to start the whole process again.
I’m glad that you had positive outcomes though.
I haven’t examined this report but previously HMRC did not include the time spent on the automated message section as “waiting time”.
Plus the count abandoned calls as “answered successfully” on the assumption that the query must have been answered by the automated message section (with no recognition that the caller has given up waiting).
More massaging of figures to appear to meet targets (or at least not appear to be quite so many miles away from target)
So, in short, they've made no progress on the 40 day turnaround.
They've marginally improved the percentage of calls that they actually answer.
Those of us who phone them daily don't bother with their customer approval survey, because it makes no difference and is an extra few moments of our life that we can't get back, and yet their customer satisfaction is still only 80%.
And I'm sorry but there is no word that isn't going to get censored that I can use for their claim of 13 minute wait times. Currently on 13 minutes and contemplating whether to put it on hands free and go and make a coffee.
I never phone HMRC, I always write. If they ignore the first letter (which happens most times), I send a reminder, then a second reminder with a threat of a complaint, then a complaint, then a reminder to deal with the complaint with a threat to escalate it to the Adjudicator. I have always found that at some point you get a result. I have never quite had to involve the Adjudicator. Do each letter a month or two apart, and you can nearly always get something dealt with within a year.
"Do each letter a month or two apart, and you can nearly always get something dealt with within a year."
What a shocking indictment of the level of service provided by HMRC.
'HMRC admits service levels ‘aren’t where we want them’'
Service levels are also not what where HMRC claims them to be
'HMRC admits service levels ‘aren’t where we want them’'
'We want them hidden somewhere, so we don't need to waste time making up these statistics'.
I laughed at the suggestion that over 80% of "customers" were satisfied with HMRC's service. As there is no mention of the numbers surveyed, I can only assume that Jim Harra's dog, cat, rabbit and goldfish voted in favour with his grandson being the dissenting voice.
Until all HMRC staff are told to get back into the office full time, there will be no improvement in the current shambolic situation.
I phoned HMRC Friday afternoon and was in a queue for an hour before I gave up and put the phone down. How is this call measured in HMRC's stats? Is it logged as unanswered 60+ minutes or does the fact I terminated the call mean it's not counted at all?
I spoke to HMRC VAT Helpline this morning (after queuing 30 minutes). The person I spoke to said the wait times are horrendous (her word) and queues of an hour are not unusual. I had queued for an hour on Friday. To make matters worse, HMRC had installed a new phone system on Wednesday and some HMRC staff cannot transfer calls. The person I spoke to needed to transfer my call but she was unable. So after a total of 90 minutes waiting, I've got to start again. Does HMRC measure all this? Who pays for my 90 minutes queuing? I can't charge my client because it isn't the client's fault that HMRC are rubbish.
On this occasion, the Helpline wanted to transfer me to a technician but couldn't because the new phone system is broken. Those technicians are employed to take these calls. If no calls are being transferred to them, what are they doing with their time?
Another problem with HMRC's phone system is dropping calls. Quite often HMRC staff drop the call when they pick it up. This is particularly common if HMRC need to put me on hold. It is so annoying because I have no choice but to redial, queue again and have to explain everything again to another HMRC person.
Never mind the phone waiting time, how about the IR sorting out their paperwork
Of the Tax Returns I have submitted online, and been shown as received on the Gateway site, I am still waiting for them to process 8 out of the last 25, this being for the May/June period.
In one case the Revenue are still chasing a client for £870 when in fact they owe him £2300. I have a case of submitting a husband and wife Tax Returns at the same time. The wife's was processed promptly, but the husbands has not been dealt with. He is owed £170 back.
Is this problem being caused by WFH?
HMRC have just captured once client's 2021 Tax Return that was submitted in November. It has taken 6 phone calls to HMRC to get it captured. The outcome: client is owed a refund. Are HMRC going to pay him for the extra overdraft interest he has incurred over these last 8 months?
Never mind the phone waiting time, how about the IR sorting out their paperwork
Jeez - that is bad if you're still dealing with IR.
Never mind the phone waiting time, how about the IR sorting out their paperwork
Of the Tax Returns I have submitted online, and been shown as received on the Gateway site, I am still waiting for them to process 8 out of the last 25, this being for the May/June period.
In one case the Revenue are still chasing a client for £870 when in fact they owe him £2300. I have a case of submitting a husband and wife Tax Returns at the same time. The wife's was processed promptly, but the husbands has not been dealt with. He is owed £170 back.
Is this problem being caused by WFH?
Morning all, having misslaid my ASA password; called HMRC "just take you through security questions: sorry you failed. Which question did I fail? "sorry unable to tell you, you will have to call again" Merry go round? Called again two days later "Run you through security " 5 mins later got the answer I needed. Lack of consistency would you say? and waste of my time
I had a very similar experience on phoning the ADL on a routine PAYE Code issue for a longstanding client. The first ADL operator said I had failed security but refused to clarify on what point (did I quote the wrong address/postcode perhaps? yet neither I nor my client have moved premises in many years). The second ADL operator was more helpful - I was no longer down on their record as agent for the client (which was news to both me and the client!). I am still trying to work out what has happened: either my client has been (fraudulently?) duped into appointing another agent (though he has no recollection of ever doing so) or HMRC have botched it up somewhere.
I have noticed over the last couple of years that it has become far more likely that the person I speak to will actually fix the issue I'm calling about.
The wait times are both atrocious and considerably higher than they are reporting, but the staff you can talk to, when you talk to them, are invariably as helpful as one can reasonably expect and often quite sympathetic at the struggles faced by people who have to deal with HMRC regularly.
The issue is very clearly in the upper echelons and specifically with how under resourced the front line are. I don't know if there's any scope for resolving this, if only there were some big pointless money pits that HMRC were engaged in throwing their budget into that we could perhaps seal up, but I really can't think of anything...
HMRC Helpline staff have less functionality than in the past. They are much more "tell" than "do". Most items needing actioning require them to generate a referral which goes to some black hole and is never actioned. HMRC have said this is something to do with training: they need to spend less time training staff if there is less damage they can do. My argument is Joe the Plumber is expected to be competent with VAT, CIS and SA so surely HMRC should train their staff to be competent across multiple taxes. Don't forget, Joe the Plumber also has to run his plumbing business (get in new work, quote, buy in materials, do the job to a Gas Safe standard, pay for materials, chase debts etc) whereas HMRC staff only have to deal with tax.
My argument is Joe the Plumber is expected to be competent with VAT, CIS and SA so surely HMRC should train their staff to be competent across multiple taxes. Don't forget, Joe the Plumber also has to run his plumbing business (get in new work, quote, buy in materials, do the job to a Gas Safe standard, pay for materials, chase debts etc) whereas HMRC staff only have to deal with tax.
This ↑
Fine words butter no parsnips. I would wish to see HMRC impose the same stringent requirements on themselves as they do on us, the agents. But the Institutes are all pusillanimous, and as HMRC bends over backwards to accommodate the Big Four, no one with any clout has a voice.
Now, here's a thought: Let the Accounting Bodies set HMRC reasonable targets and if they fail to achieve them, reduce the salaries of the top rank, starting with Jim Harra.
It should be a level playing field. If we have to respond within 30 days, so should HMRC. How long would HMRC be prepared to wait on the phone until we answered? I reckon they'd put the phone down if it was unanswered after a minute, whereas they expect us to wait 60 minutes.
And more!!!
And they no longer acknowledge & approve Notification of an Option to Tax:-
As per the instructions on the form and the guidance outlined within VAT Notice 742A
Opting to tax land and buildings at Section 4, and in particular Section 4.2.4. lt is for
the opter to ensure the notification is correctly made. The effective date(s) are those
indicated on your notification, unless otherwrse notified.
An acknowledgment letter will not be issued to you in relation to the above land property
would refer you to VAT1614A form and the guidance outlined within VAT Notice 742A
Opting to tax land and buildings at Section 4, and in particular Section 4.2.4 "The
option to tax has legal effect even if HMRC does not acknowledge receipt of your
notiflcation. You should begin charging VAT, even if you have not received an
acknowledgment from us."
Please note the following:
lf you need extra support, for example if you have a disability, a mental health condition, or do
not speak English/Welsh, go to www.gov.uk and search for'get help from HMRC'.
Text Relay service prefix number - 18001
FF
@
10 August 2022
orrt274453501tJJ
Dear Mr Kemp
The entity opting to tax should keep pertinent business records and ensure the option
to tax is correctly applied to the supplies made of the above notified property.
An option to tax may not make taxable a grant of the land/property which is' or is
"ip"it"O
to become, a capital item as per Regulations 112to 116 of the VAT
Regulations 1995.
lf either you, a person funding your acquisition of the land/property, or a person
connected to either ofyou intends to or expects to occupy the land/property for
anything other than miinly taxable business purposes, you should be aware of
paragriptrs 12 to 16 and 34, Schedule 1O of the VAT Act 1994, which may
disapply your option to tax.
An option to tax will not always effect on all landiproperty notified, for example,
property intended for use as a dwelling or for relevant residential or charitable
purposes will be excluded from the effects of the notified option. Please refer to
Public Notice 742A, Section 3 for further details.
Regulation 31(1) of the Value Added Tax Act Regulations 1995 stipulates that all
VAT registered persons are required to keep pertinent business records for a period
of 6 years. However, as options to tax are valid for at least 20 years, as per
paragraph 25, Schedule 10 of the VAT Act 1994, we recommend that all records
pertaining to an option to tax, (previously known as an election to waive exemption),
should be retained for no less than 20 years from the effective date given. HMRC
would also suggest that you keep an electronic ledger of all opted land/property that
should be consulted prior to any supply of that land/property.
Please note that if the person who signed the relevant form or declaration is not an
authorised signatory of the opter then any option to tax so notified to HMRC will be
invalid and the supplies being made will remain exempt from VAT. You may
also be liable for the repayment of any input tax that has in such circumstances been
incorrectly claimed by you. Please refer to Section 7 of VAT Notice 742A - Opting to
tax which explains who is authorised for making the decision and notifying the option
to tax to HMRC.
What to do next if you have changed your Principal Place of Business (PPOB)?
I note that the business address on your option to tax notification, differs from your principal
place of business (PPOB) we currently hold on file. You can update your PPOB via your
VAT online account or by post by completing VAT Form 484 which can be obtained from our
web page www.oov.uk
lf submitting future correspondence in relation to this option to tax or if you identify
an issue on your option to tax please contact the Option to Tax National Unit via our
e-mail address is optiontotaxnationalunit@hm rc.qov.uk. (lf you do provide further
information please quote the reference number at the top of the letter)
Yours sincerely
Jean Jones
Officer of HM Revenue & Customs
Join the millions of taxpayers already using their Personal Tax Account to access a range of
services. lt takes just a few minutes to get started, go to www.gov. uupersonal{ax-account
Or you can use the HMRC app.
To find out what you can expect from us and what we expect from you go to www.gov.uk
and search for 'HMRC Charter'.
oTT/2744s3s01/
This is almost as long as the previous approval with dates was. Both are clearly computer generated so what's the problem with sticking to the old way...If it aint broke, DON'T FIX IT.
If the government wanted to, they could sort this situation out. Take the vaccine roll-out, take track & trace, take the furlough scheme, they can act quick when they want.
It's about their will to do it and it is very long down the list of priorities. They don't really care whether there are long waiting times as it doesn't effect the tax take, that is why they are so quick to pass things over to debt recovery even though their tax assessment maybe wrong, because the priority is about tax in.
For me HMRC are unfit for purpose at present but I do not expect anyone in government will sort this - always the same 'we are improving - we will do better' but nothing ever changes
13-18 minutes? If I knew it was only going to take 13 minutes to get through I would ring them more often. I must just be unlucky because the once or twice I am forced to ring them each week I never get through in less than 30 minutes, the norm is 45 minutes, and as others have stated, I am regularly cut off whilst still waiting.
So not only are the published wait times unacceptable and services abysmal, but HMRC have had to lie and make up 'alternative facts' in order to massage the facts to get them to that level.
The opening line is a complete joke. HMRC may have made one step forward into improving its customer service levels . But what about the two - or three - backwards ?
In my book that's a further deterioration so let's get the facts straight. But with no accountability is any improvement to the ''seesawing'' and ''teetering'' likely or even expected ? A sharp kick up the backside starting with the Head Honco Harra Hierachy is called for.
The opening line is a complete joke. HMRC may have made one step forward into improving its customer service levels . But what about the two - or three - backwards ?
In my book that's a further deterioration so let's get the facts straight. But with no accountability is any improvement to the ''seesawing'' and ''teetering'' likely or even expected ? A sharp kick up the backside starting with the Head Honcho Harra Hierachy is called for.