HMRC's Christmas Gift to Taxpayers: Endless Hold Music, Phantom Debts, and a £2.8 Billion Demand for the Local Chippy

Good evening, you beleaguered bunch. It's mid-December 2025, the fairy lights are up, the mince pies are out, and what's HMRC's seasonal offering? A fresh helping of utter shambles, served piping hot with a side of incompetence.

While the rest of us are trying to wrap presents and dodge office parties, taxpayers are still routinely clocking up an hour or more on hold just to speak to an adviser. That's right – in this age of AI chatbots and instant everything, our beloved Revenue can't manage to answer the bloody phone without turning it into an endurance test. Premium-rate hold music raking in the streams while you weep quietly into your spreadsheet.

Accountants? They're being quietly told not to chase outstanding queries because, let's face it, HMRC's backlog is longer than the queue for the January sales. "Don't poke the bear," seems to be the unofficial line, as if bombarding them with follow-ups might cause the whole creaking edifice to collapse.

Then there's the refunds. Overpaid your income tax? Congratulations – you might wait up to two years for HMRC to grudgingly hand it back. Interest-free loan to the Treasury, courtesy of you, the mug punter. They've got your money sitting pretty while you're scraping the barrel. Marvellous.

But the real cherry on this festering cake? Taxpayers being hounded for non-existent bills and penalties. Wrong tax codes, system glitches, pure fantasy debts – HMRC doesn't care. They'll slap on penalties, send in the debt collectors, and let you fight to prove you're innocent. And the pièce de résistance: one small business recently received a tax demand for £2.8 billion. Yes, billion with a B. Presumably for that corner shop that's been secretly running an offshore empire from behind the counter.

This isn't teething troubles. This is systemic rot. Years of underfunding, botched digital "transformations", and a deliberate push to make phoning them so painful you'll give up and go online – where half the services don't work anyway. The Public Accounts Committee called it out: degraded service to force digital uptake. HMRC denies it, of course, while quietly cutting off callers after 70 minutes like some sadistic game show.

How much longer are we going to tolerate this national embarrassment? The same outfit that demands perfection from us – first time, every time, or else penalties – can't answer a phone, process a refund, or issue a correct bill.

Tax does have to be taxing.

But under this lot at HMRC, it's become a full-blown torture chamber.

Amazon "Survival Kit for the HMRC Apocalypse" Suggestions
(affiliate links – because you'll need retail therapy after your next brown envelope)

• Noise-Cancelling Headphones – block out that endless Vivaldi loop
• Blood Pressure Monitor – essential monitoring during your hourly hold marathon
• Industrial Shredder – for when the phantom penalty notices pile up
• "Keep Calm and Appeal Everything" mug – fill with something strong
• Therapy Voucher – because dealing with HMRC is a recognised trauma

 

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"