Further info on HMRC performance
Further to our bulletin last week to provide some further points about the poor performance levels of HMRC and how it affects us in trying to deal with your affairs.
In March, there was a mass data breach where thousands of accountants received Late Filing Penalty Notices intended for clients of other accountants.
Our priority access line as tax agents was withdrawn by HMRC which means that we have to wait up to 40 minutes to an hour when we need HMRC’s assistance but very often the calls are cut completely before they are answered.
There are some significant issues with VAT at the moment as well. In the past year, we have ourselves received a late filing penalty for not paying VAT when we were allowed to defer the payment. HMRC eventually apologised.
We are now trying to arrange paying for deferred VAT by Direct Debit and have separate communications from VAT showing how much we owe and another saying we owe nothing at all. Amounts we have paid are not correctly recorded on HMRC’s own ledger.
It begs the question as to the state of the public finances if even basic transactions are not recorded properly and different information about the same transaction is recorded in different places.
The moral of the tale is, if you receive information from HMRC, please do not necessarily regard it as being accurate. Please contact us and we will do our best, within the constraints outlined above, to solve the problem.
