Unsurprisingly the recent changes in pension rules and the possibility of an HMRC emergency levy on withdrawals has caused a stampede to HMRC's phone lines.
As many as one million people are believed to
have called HMRC last Wednesday week, leaving the lines engaged
throughout the day.
The Telegraph reports that people who telephoned were forced to spend 10 minutes navigating the options menus before being cut off because the waiting time was deemed "too long".
Instead a recorded voice advised savers who were worried about the tax implications of withdrawing their pensions to call Pension Wise, the Government's new general information service.That is fair enough, if the calls were about pension advice. However, if the calls related to the tax implications of a pension withdrawal then that is another matter.
That being said, HMRC were of the view the calls were simply down to the new tax year. A spokesman for HMRC said its phone lines were "very busy" because it was the start of a new tax year.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Never changes does it, the phones are busy because it's the new tax year, then it's tax credits renewals, self assessment blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteI thought the EC's shut down because HMRC had guaranteed the phone lines could be manned efficiently?
This isn't the whole story. The staff from the so called 'flex sites' who are now answering phone calls usually answer post. Now there are 650,000 letters stacked up waiting for a reply. These date back to early January. When will senior heads roll?
ReplyDelete650,000?
ReplyDeleteI heard it was 475,000 letters, still a lot
ReplyDeleteNope!!!
DeleteNot unless 175,000 letters have accidently fallen into the shredder & no further letters have been received in the last week or so
January ?? We are working letters dated October 2014...you boys are up to date !!!
Delete" A spokesman for HMRC said its phone lines were "very busy" because it was the start of a new tax year "
ReplyDeleteErmm...
They been jammed for at least 2 years, nothing to do with the introduction of RTI, on top of unresolved issues with NPS or loss of experienced staff ?
Hey joe public, flood the system, bring it to its knees and lets get this shit hole sorted out.
ReplyDeleteYet more staff cuts, fire fighting by those left to pick up the pieces and poor cheaply invested computer systems. Lin Homer then claims to be thinking about the public. I think not.
ReplyDeleteBut these computer systems aren't cheap..... Last figures I heard NPS cost almost a billion pounds! And rising!!!
DeleteBut these computer systems aren't cheap..... Last figures I heard NPS cost almost a billion pounds! And rising!!!
DeleteNPS is a runaway success story compared to the Cloud storage system which HMRC commissioned. It has proved to be a complete clunker from day one. CIO Mark Dearnley was issuing more apologies about its dire performance this week. The staff commenting on the HMRC intranet to this piece were not pulling many punches in their criticisms. It is worth noting that the Cloud was commissioned and largely implemented outside the Aspire contract and is supposed to be a trail blazer for the brave new IT world to come after the current contracts with Capgemini and Fujitsu end in mid 2017. Many more computing successes like it and it will not be long before HMRC are back to pen and paper.
DeleteIf NPS is a success story...
DeleteWhy the need for 40 million+ phone calls
827,000 pieces of post on hand now!!
ReplyDelete