HMRC has published its Business Plan 2014–16 setting out what it plans to deliver over the next two tax years. As with any business plan, the message is quite aspirational in places, despite being set against a backdrop of falling HMRC staff numbers and budgetary cuts.

In Section 2 of the document, HMRC set out their plans for the period under the following key headings:

• Maximising revenues
• Improving services for taxpayers
• Making sustainable cost savings
• How this impacts on HMRC staff
• Managing risks to HMRC delivery

The Business Plan also sets out how success will be measured. In the area of phone and post HMRC aims to:

• work towards their aspiration of handling 90% of calls across all helplines, achieving a consistent level of at least 80% in 2014–15; and
• handle 80% of correspondence within 15 working days and 95% within 40 working days, with at least 90% passing quality standards.

In the context of recent performance stats released by HMRC, these remain ambitious targets. Chartered Accountants Tax News covered the latest performance update in a recent news edition. Whilst there can be no doubt that there have been incremental improvements in recent years there is still some way to go to achieve these particular objectives.

The Institute continuously engages with HMRC in respect of service matters. To drive that process, details of your experiences are vital in assisting us with the provision of evidence based feedback to support these representations. Members are asked to contact Leontia Doran (leontia.doran@charteredaccountants.ie) with their experience of HMRC service matters and communication protocols so that we can discuss the current up to date position directly with HMRC.