Don't bother calling HMRC…

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Rufus Stone

Original Poster:

6,561 posts

58 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
... because they will be closed April - September.

https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc...

Apparently last years closure was just a trial!




S600BSB

5,260 posts

108 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Broken Britain

The Selfish Gene

5,535 posts

212 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
that means they will send less beginning letters hopefully.

A good thing, hopefully they will collapse and fk off

Rufus Stone

Original Poster:

6,561 posts

58 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
S600BSB said:
Broken Britain
Yep, and they appear all too happy to create extra work for others while doing less work themselves.

JagLover

42,718 posts

237 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Rufus Stone said:
... because they will be closed April - September.

https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc...

Apparently last years closure was just a trial!
But will be open for four months before the filing deadline if you do need to talk to them, so not much to get outraged about in my view.

Rufus Stone

Original Poster:

6,561 posts

58 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
JagLover said:
But will be open for four months before the filing deadline if you do need to talk to them, so not much to get outraged about in my view.
Compress 10 months of enquiries into 4 months. What could possibly go wrong.

W12GT

3,563 posts

223 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Rufus Stone said:
JagLover said:
But will be open for four months before the filing deadline if you do need to talk to them, so not much to get outraged about in my view.
Compress 10 months of enquiries into 4 months. What could possibly go wrong.
It’s worse than that - think about it; if only open 7/8months a year then they won’t be permanent staff, it will be temps who don’t have a clue what they are doing.

As someone else posted - broken britain. Doesn’t even deserve capital letters anymore.

sospan

2,499 posts

224 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Self-assessment only though. Not a complete block. Not good but might it let staff do other work during the downtime? Where would the benefits of that be? Targeted clearance of backlogs, selective industry concentration?
It would be interesting to see details behind the plan.

snuffy

9,983 posts

286 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
You have to hand it to them however. Their figures for call waiting times are very poor, so their solution is to turn the phone off; hey presto - no more waiting times.

Just like cancelling a train that is running late; a cancelled train does not get included in the latenes figures.

It's brillant thinking.


vaud

50,935 posts

157 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Having had a tour of the Telford contact centers and understanding the perks and conditions that they have I'm not sure we will notice the difference.

Between flex working, strict timing for when they pick up the phone and union support...

Not easy for HMRC to staff with a finite local labour pool in the arse end of nowhere. (the surrounds of Telford are nice but it's not exactly a destination for employees)

alangla

4,929 posts

183 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
W12GT said:
It’s worse than that - think about it; if only open 7/8months a year then they won’t be permanent staff, it will be temps who don’t have a clue what they are doing.

As someone else posted - broken britain. Doesn’t even deserve capital letters anymore.
Apparently it’s annualised hours contracts, so loads of time off in the summer and unpaid O/T around deadline time to make up. The cynic in me suspects that sickness and other absences might just surge around that time mysteriously. The silly thing is, had HMRC just reduced cover to match the reduced demand away from deadline time rather than closing the phone line altogether then they could have been in a position to spin this as 100% positive and a massive saving in overtime for the taxpayer

illmonkey

18,292 posts

200 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
I called and was advised I had to send a letter to correct my tax return from 19/20, can’t do it online. I was given VERY strict instructions. Letter sent in, 9 months later it was rejected with no reason.

I phoned up again to be told I left something off, something I was not told to include originally. So I sent an other letter in, some while ago, as the cut off the amend that tax year is April. Their site says they estimate they’ll get to my letter in July.

I can only imagine they’ll tell me it is wrong and it’s too late to make changes, gutted.

It’s a fecking mess. 1st letter took 9 months to process. 2nd is estimated 8…

119

7,139 posts

38 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
This is why I pay an accountant.

Never had and will never need to ever contact them.

Eric Mc

122,332 posts

267 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
sospan said:
Self-assessment only though. Not a complete block. Not good but might it let staff do other work during the downtime? Where would the benefits of that be? Targeted clearance of backlogs, selective industry concentration?
It would be interesting to see details behind the plan.
Chasing fraudulent Bounce Back Loan/Furlough/SEISS claims - chasing refunds of R&D tax reliefs given carelessly by HMRC - chasing Child Benefit Income Charge.

sawman

4,933 posts

232 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Grrr - this is what I thought might happen after they turned of the phones last summer.
Irritating when you need to wait 6 months to talk to them about an issue,

sanguinary

1,353 posts

213 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
119 said:
This is why I pay an accountant.
This is confirming that I made the right choice to stop preparing accounts for people after doing so for thirty years, and do something else with my time.

Calculator is planned to be hung up at the end of the month.

Oakey

27,620 posts

218 months

Tuesday 19th March
quotequote all
Rufus Stone said:
JagLover said:
But will be open for four months before the filing deadline if you do need to talk to them, so not much to get outraged about in my view.
Compress 10 months of enquiries into 4 months. What could possibly go wrong.
From experience I'll tell you what happens.

You wait for 75 mins and get cut off. Then you wait another 75 mins and get cut off. Repeat this until you give up trying.

andyA700

2,872 posts

39 months

Wednesday 20th March
quotequote all
Oakey said:
Rufus Stone said:
JagLover said:
But will be open for four months before the filing deadline if you do need to talk to them, so not much to get outraged about in my view.
Compress 10 months of enquiries into 4 months. What could possibly go wrong.
From experience I'll tell you what happens.

You wait for 75 mins and get cut off. Then you wait another 75 mins and get cut off. Repeat this until you give up trying.
That sounds very much like our GP surgery for the past four years.

Rufus Stone

Original Poster:

6,561 posts

58 months

Wednesday 20th March
quotequote all
I've been getting this all morning too, they are a fking joke. I now cannot do what I wanted to do before going out for the day to meetings.


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JagLover

42,718 posts

237 months

Wednesday 20th March
quotequote all
W12GT said:
It’s worse than that - think about it; if only open 7/8months a year then they won’t be permanent staff, it will be temps who don’t have a clue what they are doing.
They do deal with other things other then Self Assessment queries from taxpayers.