Self assessment helpline service reduction cause of concern, says ACCA

HMRC has recently announced that access to self assessment tax helplines will be dramatically curtailed from the 11 December – 31 January, causing concern for many taxpayers and finance professionals who are due to file tax returns, according to ACCA. 

The self assessment helplines will be closed for the majority of enquiries, and only open for “priority calls”. In the same period last year, HMRC helplines received 1.2 million calls – more than one fifth of the total calls received in the 12 month period. 

HMRC has yet to share how these priority calls will be ranked and dealt with during this period.  

The self assessment helplines were previously closed over the summer, which caused numerous headaches for finance professionals and taxpayers alike, as they struggled to get access to answers for basic queries.  

HMRC has highlighted that there are online resources available that taxpayers and finance professionals can turn to, including the YouTube channel and the HMRC gov.uk website. HMRC stated that the top five most common queries received over the phone can all be answered by online resources. Currently, HMRC call wait times vary greatly with an average wait time of 28 minutes.  

HMRC’s timing is not helpful as this year will see many people forced to fill a self assessment return for the first time, due to frozen thresholds and rising incomes. This reaches across all areas of employed, self employed and retired people who are now required to file a self assessment. 

Glenn Collins, head of strategic and technical engagement at ACCA, said: “The dramatically reduced service will be a worry for taxpayers and financial professionals alike. At a time when queries around self assessment go up significantly, this move by HMRC once again demonstrates it lacks the proper resources that it desperately needs.  

“ACCA has repeatedly called on the UK government to make significant improvements to the HMRC services, including the availability of HMRC agents to resolve basic issues which are currently not being achieved using the current HMRC online services. At the moment, finance professionals and taxpayers bear the cost of these inefficiencies and are having to spend many hours trying to resolve issues; time that would be better spent on their businesses.” 

Collins added: “We stand by our previous statement whereby we referred to HMRC as having unacceptably poor service. The difficulties experienced by accountants in working with HMRC cannot be overstated, and the reduced service offered by the helplines will surely only further exacerbate poor service levels and cause more frustrations at one of the busiest times of the year.”