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Few things are as hard in life as trying to get through and speak to a human at HMRC.
The tax office failed to answer almost a million calls in January as people desperately tried to file their self-assessment tax returns ahead of the Jan 31 deadline and avoid a £100 fine.
Not only were 841,945 calls “not handled”, the average wait time to speak to a tax adviser exceeded 25 minutes for the first time ever.
This week, HMRC went further and tried to close its phone lines for almost six months of the year until it was forced to row back after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt intervened.
However, the plans are simply on “pause” and there is no doubt HMRC’s goal is to shift more customers towards a virtual taxman and away from human beings.
Deputy chief executive Angela MacDonald, said by “encouraging customers to self-serve online wherever possible”, HMRC will be able to help more customers and “maximise every pound of taxpayers’ money”.
But as thousands of frustrated taxpayers will know, some queries cannot be answered by scrolling through HMRC’s website or attempting to speak to the website’s automated chatbot. So, in a time when it’s harder than ever to speak to a human at HMRC, Telegraph Money explores the secret tips to help you beat the helpline queues.
The best time to call is 8am
There is a whole host of advice online which claims calling HMRC later in the week and in the afternoon helps reduce the time you spend in the queue. The theory goes that everyone will think to call first thing Monday morning so you can beat the system by calling later in the afternoon, towards the weekend when others have given up.
However, Paul Slokan, an associate director at tax firm RSM, dispelled this rumour. He said: “There is no merit in calling them at lunchtime on any specific day. The best time any day is first thing in the morning, and it doesn’t make a difference whether it’s Monday morning or Wednesday morning.”
Mr Slokan, who helps advise his clients with their tax needs, says the best time to call is 8am when the lines open. He warns that delaying this by even an hour and calling at 9am could leave you stuck on hold and unable to get through to an agent.
“By 9am most people are in the office. If you call at that time you are more than likely to get the automated message that they are too busy and to call back later,” he said.
Kevin Sefton, chief executive of personal tax app, untied, added: “If you call at 8am in the morning there is not a backlog of calls in the queue.”
He told callers to expect an hour wait rather than the average 25 minutes HMRC says taxpayers are currently waiting.
The chatbot is your friend
Anyone who has used the HMRC chatbot on its website will very quickly understand that you are not speaking to a human and that it is following a script.
This can be incredibly frustrating because tax queries are often complex and unique and cannot be answered by a blanket answer. But, Mr Slokan explains, the chatbot can be used as a shortcut to get ahead of the queue.
He said rather than typing out your specific query to the chatbot, you should ask straight away to speak to an agent. He said: “The first thing we type in is ‘I want to speak to an agent’, you then get another message saying ‘what is your query?’, to which we again reply ‘we want to speak to an agent’ and once you’ve done that a couple of times they do put you through to an agent.”
He said when going through the chatbot and asking to speak to an agent, the wait time is between 30 and 40 minutes as opposed to an hour-long wait his clients often experience when phoning directly.
Should you write a letter instead?
In days gone by, when customer service was particularly poor people turned to writing in. Addressing a letter to the head of the company would often get your query noticed and escalated far sooner.
HMRC lists post as one of the methods to contact the tax office but this is not an efficient way of having your queries picked up and dealt with by a person. Last July, HMRC created a special taskforce to deal with the backlog of mail after thousands of letters were left unanswered for more than a year. The taskforce focused on more than 37,000 pieces of correspondence that were at least 10 months old.
Mr Slokan said: “Letter writing is not the most efficient way of getting hold of someone at HMRC.
“My colleague wrote to HMRC last April and they only just responded this week, that’s a 10 to 11-month delay on certain items of post. This example was an overpayment relief claim, so the client was actually owed money back and it’s taken 10 to 11 months to be actioned.”
Persistence pays
The truth is that even when you’re armed with tips and knowledge of how to get through to HMRC, it is very possible your call could go unanswered.
However, Mr Sefton advises if your tax query is complex and you need advice from HMRC, you should persist in trying to contact them and not turn to alternative websites for sub-par advice.
He said: “I have a lot of sympathy for HMRC but we need to find better ways to support taxpayers. If HMRC turns off the lines, what does it mean in terms of whether people are more likely to make mistakes?
“I think the burden then passes to others in the community, whether that is tax agents or software providers. A big risk for HMRC and the country as a whole is that people could start to turn to Reddit or TikTok and get their tax advice from unqualified sources and then suddenly people are making claims which may not be legitimate and they’ve got no recourse.”