Data highlights need for Budget investment in HMRC services

The call follows emerging findings of a study of tax agents’ contact with HMRC, conducted jointly by the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and ICAEW during September and October 2024.

Eighty-five percent of attempts to contact HMRC across a range of helplines and webchats got through to an adviser, which the institutes said demonstrated that recent investment may have bolstered connection rates.

However, the findings reveal that a quarter of issues raised through helplines and webchats go unresolved, while in 41% of cases, agents needed to contact HMRC again.

The institutes noted that the additional funds announced in May were a one-off and are therefore calling on the Chancellor to use next week’s Budget and spending review to further invest in this crucial area.

The data is part of a larger exercise conducted by the two bodies, with the results due to be published later this year.

Ellen Milner, CIOT’s Director of Public Policy, said:

“This new evidence backs up what we have been increasingly hearing for a number of years - HMRC’s customer service levels are a serious blocker to willing people being able to get their tax affairs right and to their agents being able to support them. The poor service undermines HMRC’s Charter commitments and has a damaging impact on growth and investment.

“HMRC’s strategy is based on diverting most enquiries to their online guidance or automated digital assistant, but this simply does not work for many queries. And even where it does, too many callers are either being cut off or giving up due to unacceptably long wait times.

“We hope that this new data will help inform HMRC and the government to see that, unless and until automated digital services are substantially improved, HMRC must be provided with more resources and use them to provide all year round, well-publicised help and advice to taxpayers from a human adviser over phone and webchat.”

Frank Haskew, ICAEW Head of Taxation, said:

“These results reflect the long-standing challenges that the profession has been experiencing when engaging with HMRC.

“It’s vital that the Chancellor uses the Budget to invest in and encourage HMRC to improve the quality of service that taxpayers and our members tell us about daily. Agents play a key role in the tax system and if they can’t work effectively there is a significant knock-on effect on the UK economy.

“It should be possible for many more transactions between HMRC and taxpayers to be done online, but many services are not available. There is much for HMRC to do to improve digital services and more investment will be required.

“We look forward to presenting a number of recommendations when we publish our full report later in the year.”