The Chair of the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee, Harriett Baldwin MP, didn’t hold back when discussing the original summer closure of the main HMRC self-assessment helpline.
“I am disappointed by the lack of detail and transparency displayed by the leadership of HMRC in response to my questions on the summer closure of an important taxpayer helpline,” she said. “There is clearly a lack of clarity over the impact this decision will have on taxpayers. This simply isn’t good enough.
She had put forward several questions in writing, including whether there had been any external consultation prior to the helpline closure from 12 June to 4 September 2023, how the closure would be evaluated and what contingency arrangements were in place should the closure prove highly detrimental to taxpayers.
Despite the grilling and the public outcry, HMRC is now in the midst of a second self-assessment helpline downgrade, running from 11 December 2023 to 31 January 2024.
“Reducing access to helplines for taxpayers and agents in the peak of self assessment season was viewed as misguided and concerning [by accountants and their clients],” says Bill McGregor, founder of BMG Accountants and Tax Advisors, and the IFA’s Northern Ireland Regional Ambassador.
“The timing could not have been worse.”
An ongoing reduction in service
The real problem with these helpline cutbacks, says Tim Pinkney, IFA Director of Professional Standards, is that they add to an already-long list of similar service reductions.
These include the previous self-assessment helpline reductions, the VAT registration helpline closure, the probate helpline closure and the reduction of service level commitments on the Agent Dedicated Line.
It’s yet another example of HMRC moving away from direct contact with agents, Pinkney believes.
“It’s an anathema, to be honest,” he says. “Accountants don’t know if they’re going to get through when they need help. Many queries are being directed to the online services, rather than to the helpline. It’s just not helpful.”
These online services, McGregor says, are not always confidence-inspiring.
“The online tools are inadequate and really only cover very basic issues,” McGregor says. “It’s a very real problem for accounting firms, and it’s a huge admin burden. Every call now involves a wait time of at least 45 minutes.”
Making agents’ work more difficult
The lack of detail around what types of queries will or will not be answered leaves IFA members guessing as to whether their query will be dealt with at all, Pinkney says.
Unfortunately, he says, anecdotal evidence suggests such service cutbacks, with HMRC in its current state, “are now reluctantly accepted by those in accounting as par for the course”.
“We do engage with and get involved with HMRC,” Pinkney says. “We do try to support HMRC, as well as agent issues groups and agent strategy groups. All the professional bodies are involved in this and we’re all saying this needs to be sorted out.”
McGregor says feedback he has received from clients and from other agents indicates it is becoming close to impossible to seek any type of advice from HMRC.
“It very much appears to be a call-centre approach, with few experienced staff who can deal with non-routine issues,” he says.
How many taxpayers use online services?
The HMRC argument for cutting helpline services always includes the fact that most queries can be handled by the organisation’s online tools. If customers used those tools effectively, the logic goes, advisers would be free to manage more complex issues.
The first self-assessment helpline closure, in mid-2023, was intended to encourage, or force, callers to instead use the online services.
That three-month closure liberated the full-time equivalent of 350 advisers, HMRC reported, “to take urgent calls on other lines and answer customer correspondence. If focused on urgent calls, these advisers will answer around 6,600 each day, ensuring more customers who really need to speak to an adviser can do so”.
Self-assessment customers overwhelmingly prefer to file online, with 97 per cent choosing the digital route, the HMRC report says.
However, HMRC said at the time that “the helpline will re-open on 4 September 2023 so customers can receive expert support in the five months running up to the SA deadline on 31 January 2024”.
We now know that the helpline service was reduced with just two months remaining on that clock.
HMRC’s own logic for the 2023 closure, that the “SA helpline receives far fewer calls over the summer, with calls around 50 per cent higher between January and April compared with June to August”, works against its decision to reduce services during December and January.
A silver lining?
While few are openly supportive of the HMRC service cutbacks, not all accountants are feeling the same level of pain.
Robin Murray, founder of RJM Accountants and IFA Northern England Regional Ambassador, says it hasn’t impacted his work directly at this stage.
“From my experience, most of the calls I had were for P60 or P45 data,” Murray says. “This, with the right authority in place, can be pulled by software.”
“All data held by HMRC for a client should be able to be pulled into the self-assessment. That then leaves self-employment, property income, non-listed dividends and capital gains to report.”
Murray’s ability to access most of the information he needs digitally has protected him from much of the impact of this closure, but he is aware of the risk.
“I am dismayed by the cutbacks in helplines,” he says. “I will be annoyed if there comes a point I do need to ring them and can’t.”
If HMRC is looking to reduce call volumes, he says, its best move would be to promote the use of accountants and tax advisers, “many of whom know more than HMRC staff, anyway”.
While Murray can see some logic in suspending the service in January, he says announcing the cutbacks a week or two before they happened was not good policy.
“It simply doesn’t help when HMRC is also trying to encourage people to get on with their returns and submit them earlier,” he says. “Whereas an announcement, say, six months before, may encourage earlier submissions.”
