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Other my confusion about setting up my online account, only to be told I’d done it in 2014, I found the gateway reasonably useable for my self assessment (done last minute as always). Assumed they’d take the money I owed, I had no idea, always stuck to paper assessments & paye previously. Noticed it wasnt paid, so panic paid it last night, and called this morning to see if I needed to pay extra. After 5minutes of recorded monologue, I got straight through & was reassured by a very helpful gent. That doesn’t excuse my tax code being all sort of messed up all year
Just because they’ve had budgets cut we should accept 1 hour phone waits?
Er, yes. Unless you're under the mistaken belief that you're a very special boy who deserves his own hotline to an operator who literally does nothing else other than wait for the special people to phone.
Take your number, get in line, deal with it. And next time don't vote for the ****s that cut their budget.
Shocking at the moment..
Accountants do my self assessment- provided HMRC with the amount to pay.
Gateway account gives a different amount.
Then my paper statement gives a different amount.
Paid paper statement... get a demand for more cash as i have not paid the full amount eeerr yes i paid the bill you sent me.. send copy and no response.
Sorry they are ****ing useless all they have to do is type in a number and add/subtract.
This is the only way to get anything resolved with them. Don’t hold your breath. Glaciers move faster
Unless you've been very naughty. Then it will be thoroughly calculated in a timely fashion. If you've been egregiously bad then expect a day or two in court with an even worse outcome.
You really don't want that level of service. The call-centre people have a script and not much experience. They are under-valued and un-appreciated by senior manglement.
weeksy
Full MemberHow exactly is that our fault as customers? Just because they’ve had budgets cut we should accept 1 hour phone waits?
No- but you shouldn't blame HMRC or the people you're dealing with, you should aim that where it belongs, basically- the people who made that decision.
As an accountant who deals with HMRC on a regular basis I mostly feel pretty sorry for the people who work there. Generally they're trying their best but with very limited resources.
There is no doubt that they have been hollowed out by cost cutting to a ridiculous extent. There are some areas we deal with that are quite technical. We get the impression that there is almost nobody left at HMRC who understands these areas. When they attempt to check what we have submitted they have to ask us how it's meant to work.
Most of the confusion on this thread seems to be people not understanding the tax code system and the payments on account system. It's not really that complicated, but if don't understand it and you can afford a couple of hundred quid a year then pay an accountant to deal with it on your behalf.