Wednesday 26 September 2012

Post Haste - HMRC Goes Postal

As loyal readers know, the subject of communications with HMRC is often raised on this site. Sadly there are many who feel that the quality of both telephone and postal communications with HMRC are less than "stellar".

With regard to postal communications there is apparently some good news, as from October HMRC will be introducing a series of PO Box addresses to ensure that taxpayers direct their letters to the relevant HMRC office and team.

According to Economia this will speed up the time HMRC takes to receive and respond to taxpayers' queries.

Seemingly the rationale for this, and the confidence that it will work, comes from the results of a pilot scheme HMRC launched in 2011 for self-assessment and PAYE customers. The pilot will now be extended to cover post relating to specialist personal tax, VAT, criminal investigations, specialist investigations, debt management and banking and local compliance.

The new addresses will start appearing on correspondence from HMRC next month.

As ever, comments and views are very welcome.

Tax does have to be taxing.



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6 comments:

  1. So the one-stop shop system didn't work?
    Must have been one hell of a whiteboard session to understand what the problem was and then come up with a 'solution".
    Wonder what gave the impetus to move from inaction to headlight dazzled rabbit stage...
    Loss of bonuses/knighthoods or even jobs.
    Fear is a great motivator - at times!
    LOL

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  2. Anyone else suffering from Deja vu? This is what used to happen until HMRC decided to centralise their postrooms. Never mind though, some Pacesetter evangelist will claim this as an example of continuous improvement and with it a huge bonus.

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  3. Re anonymous 26 Sept at 18:6. Definate Deja vu! Maybe the next bright idea will be to put the direct phone line of the person working the case on the letters they issue!

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    Replies
    1. They do that for tax credit compliance but they started leaving their phones off the hook cause claimants wouldn't stop calling them to find out what was happening.

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    2. I know this might sound like a novel idea but wouldn't a good way of getting claimants to stop calling be to actually tell them what was happening?

      Not sure that the penny will ever drop in the higher echelons of HMRC & the Treasury that if they dealt with things in this manner they might not actually have to try and answer so many phone calls!

      Delete
  4. Pacesetter, whiteboards, quarterly reviews. Headache.

    ReplyDelete