12 December 2024
There are very few times in our industry that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) isn’t under some sort of scrutiny for their customer service experience.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) have conducted a 6-week study which tracked over 600 contact attempts to HMRC.
You can view the full report here.
With HMRC falling short of their five targets set by HM Treasury, CIOT and ICAEW are concerned that this may impact compliance. With 2023-24 bringing the tax gap down to a historic 4.8% it would be a shame for HMRC customer service levels to impact this progress.
Finding with regards to the contact attempts were:
- 88% of calls connected
- 49% of webchats connected
- Average wait time: 19 minutes
- Agent Dedicated Line (ADL) wait time: 27 minutes Only
- 33% of connected contact attempts fully resolved
- Average satisfaction for phonelines: 2.8 out of 5.0 (or 56%)
- Average satisfaction for webchats: 1.4 out of 5.0 (or 28%)
- £36m estimated annual HMRC staff cost for handling progress chasing
With only a third of contacts getting a resolution it is concerning that agents and payroll professionals may not be getting the support they need to handle employee issues. The CIPP has recently asked HMRC for further breakdowns of their “one and done” queries to further understand differences between taxpayer and employer success rates.
Information provided in this news article may be subject to change. Please make note of the date of publication to ensure that you are viewing up to date information.