Monday 21 June 2010

Time Wasting


A loyal reader (who runs a small business) advises me that last week he got a letter from HMRC claiming that he had missed PAYE and NIC payments for the period 6th April to 5th May 2010.

Fair enough, except that he pays these quarterly and the amounts were not yet due for that particularly quarter.

On calling HMRC using the number given on the letter he was told "it's because of the new penalty rules, this letter has gone out to all quarterly payers".

He was told to phone another number to get the fact he was a quarterly payer recorded properly.

He rang the number, and was told that it was the wrong number; a new number was given to him.

The new number given, when called, gave a recorded message "this number is currently unavailable".

Several days of fruitless ringing, and he then re rang the first number (the one on the letter).

This time the call centre operative was able/willing to update the records there and then!

Have other quarterly PAYE/NIC payers had to endure the same time wasting "game of hide and seek" enforced on them by HMRC?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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4 comments:

  1. Claim for the time wasted at your normal hourly rate under misc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's no way to treat your "customers"

    ReplyDelete
  3. He rang the number, and was told that it was the wrong number; a new number was given to him.

    .......

    Several days of fruitless ringing, and he then re rang the first number (the one on the letter).

    This time the call centre operative was able/willing to update the records there and then!


    Chances are, the first time he rang the number, he got through to someone who was unable to access his NIC records (it's pretty uncommon for people outside Longbenton to be able to access these).

    The next time he rang, he got through to someone in Longbenton or an associated contact centre as all the numbers have gone 'virtual'.

    You will find that because of the security episode a few years ago, all HMRC staff have various accesses to different systems that the person sitting next to them may not have access to especially as everyone's job being changed every five seconds.

    ReplyDelete
  4. He rang the number, and was told that it was the wrong number; a new number was given to him.

    .......

    Several days of fruitless ringing, and he then re rang the first number (the one on the letter).

    This time the call centre operative was able/willing to update the records there and then!


    Chances are, the first time he rang the number, he got through to someone who was unable to access his NIC records (it's pretty uncommon for people outside Longbenton to be able to access these).

    The next time he rang, he got through to someone in Longbenton or an associated contact centre as all the numbers have gone 'virtual'.

    You will find that because of the security episode a few years ago, all HMRC staff have various accesses to different systems that the person sitting next to them may not have access to especially as everyone's job being changed every five seconds.

    ReplyDelete