Only a third of taxpayers happy with HMRC services, says study

Only a third of individual taxpayers say that they would describe HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as ‘fair and efficient’, according to a new study.

The statistics come from HMRC’s own data, after the tax authority carried out a satisfaction survey among personal and business users.

Following recent criticisms over HMRC’s diminishing telephone services in the wake of Making Tax Digital (MTD), just 45 per cent of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) told the tax authority that they would describe its telephone services as ‘good’.

Only 43 per cent of individual taxpayers agreed.

Furthermore, more than half of individual taxpayers and 43 per cent of SMEs added that they thought HMRC did not ‘have the right systems in place’ to sufficiently prevent taxpayers from making tax return errors which provoke ‘unnecessary investigations’.

Experts predict that thousands of taxpayers fall victim to making ‘honest mistakes’ on their tax returns every year – which inevitably results in HMRC conducting thousands of investigations.

Filling out tax returns can be a complex and lengthy process and a tax investigation can be provoked only too easily – especially when access to HMRC telephone advisers is growing increasingly limited.

For advice on tax investigations or the accurate completion of tax returns, please contact us.