The latest progress report on HMRC's 'service delivery' performance has been published.
HMRC chief executive, Lin Homer, who chairs the steering group of the joint initiative on HMRC service delivery taskforce, praised the results of the department's latest quarterly update.
Homer said: 'I'm really pleased with the improvements we're putting in train through working in partnership with representatives from professional bodies and charitable organisations on this joint initiative. We've collectively resolved some important practical issues and both agents and HMRC staff have benefited from hearing, first hand, about each other's experiences during visits and workshops.'
Chief among the improvements cited are 'a significant reduction in the time to issue letters to employers to tell them that their returns were late and potentially subject to penalties' for the P35 end-of-year return process for 2011/12 and 2012/13. It also issued an extra reminder.
It has also launched an email pilot to 'test the appetite and scope for wider email and electronic communication with HMRC'.
Other recent developments include a new, single point of contact for PAYE and Self Assessment bereavement cases, including a priority telephone service. HMRC says it has now simplified the internal processes for agent authorisation following a bereavement.
The report says an extra £34m has been pumped into its call centres to 'significantly improve performance'. But back in September 2012, the taxman said that it was set to take on an extra 1,000 staff by March 2013 by 'reprioritising' £34m to ensure more than 90% of taxpayer calls are answered. It followed revelations that in 2010/11 more than half of all calls to the centres, which handle enquiries from the public and tax agents, were not answered.
The report's publication coincides with a series of regional walkouts by HMRC staff.
The strikes form part of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) three-month civil service-wide campaign over cuts to pay, pensions, jobs and working conditions,which has involved weeks of industrial action among 250,000 public sector workers since a national walkout on Budget day on 20 March.
These strikes come as the PCS is campaigning to stop government plans to close all 281 of HMRC's walk-in tax advice centres in the UK and divert enquiries to already overloaded jobcentres.
The main institutes, including ICAEW, ATT and CIOT have all questioned the rationale for the closures of HMRC's enquiry centres, stating that the consultation was rushed and did not allow enough time for proper review.
HMRC has already started to drop the use of 0845 numbers and move to 0300 phone numbers for its helplines, a decision which should help many claimants reduce the cost of contacting the tax department.
The update heralds the 'improved flow of pension information between the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC and automation of the issue of PAYE codes when state and occupational pensions are paid for the first time'.
Other areas the department deems worthy of praise include a trial enabling certain R40 cases to be filed electronically using agents' existing software to improve processing accuracy and efficiency and speed up repayment times.
It has also agreed to improvements in its debt management processes from late summer/early autumn 2013. The update concludes that 'while much has been done, there's still a lot to do' adding that all parties 'remain fully committed to the task'.