HMRC, has established a dedicated taskforce to handle mail that is over 12 months old. The taskforce will focus on post that has been left unanswered for 10 months to help prevent more post from reaching the 12-month point.
The taskforce will be made up of a team of experienced staff who will be dedicated to resolving these outstanding cases. They will be able to use a range of methods to contact taxpayers, including phone, email, and letter.
HMRC has said that the taskforce will be "flexing in size" depending on demand. This means that the number of staff involved will vary depending on how much mail is outstanding.
The taskforce is a response to complaints from taxpayers about delays in receiving responses from HMRC. In some cases, taxpayers have waited over a year for a response to their mail.
Between 2021 and 2022, HMRC responded to 39.5% of postal queries within
15 days, compared to 70.3% between 2019 and 2020, according to a recent Public Accounts Committee report.
The taskforce is expected to start work immediately. HMRC has said that it will be "continuously monitoring the progress of the taskforce and the length of the trial will reflect progress made."
What does this mean for taxpayers?
If you have a letter from HMRC that is over 12 months old, HMRC wants you to use the Agents' Issue Resolution Service online form to identify and progress the case. The form will ask you for some basic information about the case, such as the reference number and the date of the letter.
Once you have submitted the form, the taskforce will contact you to discuss the case. They will work with you to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, apparently.
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Reading it again, it's correspondence that's OVER twelve months old.
ReplyDeleteThey'll squirm out of it when some MP tries to make them accountable, as always, blaming inflation, COVID or the Tooth Fairy.
Sigh..I remember when you'd be hauled before the District Inspector if you had any post over 7 days old.
ReplyDeleteBring back Head Office relief.
ReplyDeleteI worked for the Inland Revenue in the days of daily post counts, little or no post was left unanswered beyond 7 days, post over a month was practically an offence for which you'd be sacked.
ReplyDeleteThen Blair's govt brought in a useless former O2 CEO as CEO...
Then the department was merged with Customs...
Then, through the 2000s, the bullying culture became embedded...careers and lives were ruined...people left for better jobs or to recover mentally...
No decent people wanted to work for the HMRC horror show...
Next it was BOF...designed by government to cut costs and weaken the department's capacity for tackling corporate tax avoidance (their friends)...
Skilled and experienced tax experts were bullied out or paid to leave...those experts were replaced by people with no qualifications and no experience...and frequently poor communication skills and/or a below average IQ...
Local offices were shut...that local knowledge was lost...that local connection was lost... HMRC retreated from the communities and became a distant monster...
Next it was the covid excuse, followed by working from home as a right...that 'right' authorised lazy staff to work even less, reducing HMRC's already low productivity.
And here we are.
Who will be held accountable for it?