HMRC have issued their mid-2013 report to Parliament covering the period April to September. The report looks at HMRC’s performance across a number of areas including delivery of revenues, call handling and how quickly post is handled. As HMRC themselves say “Results for April to September 2013 show a strong start to the year on securing additional tax revenues, but our customer service standards are below where we want them to be.”

£237 billion in cash terms of tax revenues were collected in the period, this equates to £11 billion more than at the same point in 2012 with provisional estimates showing an additional £8.8 billion of revenues having been collected from compliance activity during the same period. However once again, call handling stats (at just under 73%) remain below HMRC’s own target of 90%. The report cites a number of reasons for failing to meet target.

In the area of post handling, a figure of 77% is cited as having been cleared within 15 working days. Whilst this is below the 80% target set by HMRC, HMRC say that this has improved from the first quarter result of 70%. Again, a number of reasons are cited in the report for failing to meet target with measures being implemented which HMRC expect to positively impact on performance.

Chartered Accountants Ireland engages with HMRC on an ongoing basis in relation to customer/agent service matters and feedback can be passed on at any time to Leontia Doran via email at leontia.doran@charteredaccountants.ie.

HMRC have also issued an update on their approach to debt collection which mentions that currently they are recovering 96.4% of new debt within a 90 day window. The update also talks about Time to Pay, how taxpayers can use this facility successfully in situations where temporary financial difficulties are being experienced and how HMRC approach such requests.