HMRC is struggling to convince individuals, agents and small businesses that it applies penalties and sanctions equally although it has become more approachable and faster at responding to queries in the past year, according to a survey of performance against the key elements of the department’s Your Charter of customer rights
The Charter annual report reflects the first full year of the new Charter committee, which came into existence in late 2015 as one of only three direct subcommittees of the HMRC board. It includes a survey of how well the department is performing against the principles of the Charter.
This shows a seven point increase in individuals finding HMRC approachable (66%) and a five point rise in agent ratings for this element (67%), while 81% of SMEs agreed on this.
There were also improvements in areas like acceptability of time taken to provide a service. This rose by six percentage points for individuals to 62%, and by two percentage points to 65% for SMEs. While agents’ responses showed a seven percentage points increase, the overall total was marked lower at 33%.
Similarly, 67% of individuals, a seven percentage point increase, thought HMRC resolved any queries or issues quickly and fairly, while the agents’ score for this was 45%, up six percentage points. The SME score was 67%, a two percentage point rise.
However, the survey reveals only 16% of agents believe HMRC is efficient and does not waste money, compared to 34% individuals and 33% of SMEs.
In addition, all three categories are doubtful that HMRC is fulfilling its Charter duty to ‘tackle those who bend and break the rules’. Only a third (35%) of individuals agree that HMRC applies penalties and sanctions equally, along with 34% of agents and 37% of SMEs.
Your Charter Annual Report: April 2016 to March 2017 is here.
