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HMRC's online services are 'poor' and don't meet taxpayer needs, says top UK tax firm – here are alternative ways to get in touch

£1 coins on top of HMRC labelled paper documents
Emily White
Emily White
Senior News & Investigations Reporter
Created 17 January 2025 | Edited 22 January 2025

The UK tax authority's digital services, including its webchat and online forms, have been branded "poor quality" and accused of "causing woe" for taxpayers by a leading tax advisory firm. It comes as less than two weeks remain until the self-assessment tax return deadline on 31 January 2025.

Blick Rothenberg, a UK firm that provides tax, accounting and business services, said HMRC's digital services are "not meeting taxpayer needs" and "cannot support those with complex tax affairs", in a statement published this week.

If you're self-employed, a high earner or or parent with income of £50,000 plus, you have until 11.59pm on Friday 31 January 2025 to send HMRC an online tax return for the 2023/2024 tax year – make sure you don't miss the deadline.

Some HMRC online forms 'so badly designed they create additional work'

Robert Salter, a director at Blick Rothenberg, has called for more funding for HMRC's digital services after revealing that his firm had been complaining about HMRC's online forms "for years" – with some of them being "so badly designed that they create additional work for taxpayers, their agents and for HMRC".

He added that Blick Rothenberg had recently been contacted by a woman whose tax assessment was wrong because her State Pension had been accounted for incorrectly by HMRC's automated processes.

"If the figures for income received from the Government cannot be reflected correctly in HMRC’s assessments, it does not reflect at all well on the quality of HMRC's digitalisation programme," Mr Salter said.

Webchat connects taxpayers to an advisor less than half the time

Blick Rothenberg's criticism follows a joint report published in December last year by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

The report tracked all attempts to contact HMRC across phonelines and webchat over a six-week period between September and October 2024.

It found that while 88% of phone calls to HMRC were successfully connected to an advisor, only 49% of webchat attempts were successful. Moreover, only 33% of contact attempts resulted in the query being fully resolved and 11% of contact attempts were to ask for an HMRC error to be resolved.

Other ways to contact HMRC

We asked HMRC if there were less busy times to use its online webchat to increase the likelihood of getting through to an advisor, but it couldn't tell us – so you may just need to keep trying (unless the 24/7 "digital assistant" can answer your query).

If you're having technical problems accessing the webchat you can call HMRC's online services helpdesk. This is open Monday to Friday (except bank holidays), from 8am to 6pm. However, this service is to help you fix any online service problems (including if you're struggling due to health or personal reasons) – it's not to resolve any queries about your tax affairs.

Alternatively, you can:

  • Call HMRC directly for support on your tax affairs – but be prepared to hold. Telephone numbers can be found under the query category heading you need on the Gov.uk website.

  • Write to HMRC by post – likely to be slower but no need to queue. If you can't or don't want to use its online services, or you're struggling to get through, you can send a letter to the department relevant to your query. Postal addresses can also be found under the query category heading you need on the Gov.uk website.

  • Contact HMRC on X (formerly Twitter) – for general queries ONLY. If you have an X account, you can use the social media platform to get general help from HMRC by tweeting @HMRCcustomers. But you CAN'T get any tailored support specific to your circumstances this way, so don't share any personal information.

  • Use HMRC's customer forums – again, it's only for general queries. You can ask questions and receive direct answers from HMRC, though it may take several days for you to get a response. You'll need to create an account to get started.

What does HMRC say?

An HMRC spokesperson said: "More than 80% of customers are satisfied with our digital services, with more and more people using them to quickly and easily manage their tax affairs. At the same time, we're making strong progress in improving our overall service standards, with call wait times down by more than 17 minutes since April."

MSE Email icon 4 February 2025

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