Don't bother calling HMRC…

[Rufus Stone]

... 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]

Broken Britain

[The Selfish Gene]

that means they will send less beginning letters hopefully.

A good thing, hopefully they will collapse and fk off

[Rufus Stone]

S600BSB said:

Broken Britain

Yep, and they appear all too happy to create extra work for others while doing less work themselves.

[JagLover]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

This is why I pay an accountant.

Never had and will never need to ever contact them.

[Eric Mc]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.


Sorry, we’re experiencing technical difficulties
Please try again in a few minutes.

[JagLover]

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.