The taxman missed a staggering 44m calls from taxpayers last year, a report by the National Audit Office has revealed. Of the 103m calls made to HM Revenue and Customs in 2008-09, 43% went unanswered. Performance was at its worst during the peak month of July, during the tax credit renewals period, when only a third of calls were actually answered. Those callers who did get through waited an average of two minutes during normal times, and four minutes during busy periods. HMRC has recognised its performance was unacceptable, and has launched initiatives to improve its management of caller demand. Head of the NAO Amyas Morse said: 'HMRC seems to be going in the right direction seeking strategic savings by reducing face to face interaction where the job can be done by telephone or online. However, this may not be much comfort if yours was one of the 43% of calls which did not get an answer in 2008-09. 'HMRC needs to get telephone service standards up significantly if the transition to technology-enabled working is to have taxpayer support and deliver value for money.' The NAO recommends that the department halves the 35% of contact time with customers that it deems avoidable in order to make better use of its resources and answer 90% of its calls while reducing costs.