Mid-sized businesses have described how difficulty in finding information and criticisms about the quality of information provided by HMRC adversely affects their relationship with the tax authority
Just half (50%) of companies in growth were positive about the quality of information available to them, while businesses that were established less than five years ago were more positive than those established more than twenty years ago about the ease of finding information (47% and 34% respectively).
‘You struggle to get an answer to the question, which is a relatively specific question... You would expect the person at the HMRC end of the conversation to go, “okay, I know exactly what you mean, this is what you need to do’, or ‘this is how you would treat it”. Which as a company is frustrating because we’re trying to do the right thing but we’re not sure we’re getting good quality information,’ said one employer at a £10m turnover business.
Overall, just 27% of businesses that reported a positive overall experience also said that their experience had improved compared to the previous 12 months. Nearly half (45%) of those that had a negative overall experience said that their experience had got worse. Just five per cent of those that gave a negative overall experience rating reported that their experience had improved over the past 12 months.
The majority of businesses (58%) reported that their experience had stayed the same. However, more reported that their experience had improved (20%) than thought it had got worse (13%).
The tax authority’s handling of telephone calls was again highlighted as having performed poorly, with just 50% having faith in its ability to get the transaction right, while just 36% felt the time taken to resolve the issue was acceptable.
‘This must have been weeks of my life, weeks. Literally, I am on hold probably for between 20 and 30 minutes each time. Or I had someone saying that he had no more time for me and hung up on me as well,’ said one respondent from a 100-249 employee business.
Taxpayers who corresponded with HMRC by email had similar views about HMRC’s ability to get the transaction correct (50%), acceptability of time taken (35%) and the quality of information (50%).
The HMRC mid-sized business customer survey is available here.
