After a short trial HMRC has expanded its text service that directs taxpayers online to find answers to questions. Sounds good, but is it all it’s cracked up to be?
Text service
In early May 2023 HMRC extended its help service for taxpayers which it’s been trialling since January. The service encourages taxpayers who phone in with a question to terminate their call and instead look online for answers. The caller is asked for basic information about their query and is then sent a text with links to online guidance. However, despite HMRC’s confidence we have doubts about the efficacy of the service.
Misleading stats
HMRC is basing the expansion on what it says are positive statistics. It says 39% of callers who received the texts didn’t make a follow-up call within the next seven days. This means that 61% did! What’s more, the 39% ignores taxpayers who called back, but left it more than a week. No doubt others failed to find the right answer online and just gave up. While we applaud the idea of self-help, HMRC is guilty of viewing the results of its trial through rose-tinted glasses.
Reality check
There’s no doubt that in general HMRC’s online guidance has improved over the last ten years or so. However, there’s still, in our view, a wide gulf between having the information available online and being able to understand and put it into practice. What’s more, if you accept the text service you’ll spend over five minutes communicating with HMRC’s chat-bot before the texts are sent. It will take you an indefinite time to find the answer online. If you can’t, or you can but it requires further action from HMRC, you’ll need to make contact again, which can mean starting at the back of the phone queue, probably only to be told HMRC is too busy to answer.
Tip. To avoid waiting, often simply to be cut off without an answer, our advice is to always check online for an answer before calling and where feasible use alternative contact methods (see The next step ).
HMRC is sending online guidance links to taxpayers who phone. Check online for an answer to your question before calling to avoid waiting for HMRC’s automated service to fob you off with a text or just cut you off. Consider other methods of contacting HMRC.
The next step
This article has been reproduced by kind permission of Indicator – FL Memo Ltd. For details of their tax-saving products please visit www.indicator-flm.co.uk or call 01233 653500.