In part because it thinks a digital service for taxpayers is better.
Over 1,000 jobs in HMRC's customer services teams have been cut in the last 12 months despite ongoing criticism of service levels. The number of staff has dropped by 1,143 from 20,139 at the end of 2022 to 18,996 in December 2023, a 5.6% decrease.
Customer service teams make up nearly a third (30.9%) of the entire HMRC full-time workforce.
HMRC's plans to cut phone helplines and force taxpayers (or customers as HMRC describes them) onto its website and webchat in future, it is unlikely to hire more staff, that will pile pressure on the existing workforce.
HMRC says it has "moved to a flexible workforce model where our customer advisers can operate between different channels of customer communications such as answering calls, processing customer correspondence, or addressing web chat enquiries throughout the day." It argues "this allows us to react to peaks in demand and deploy staff more efficiently" and states HMRC "no longer have customer services staff working exclusively in call centres."
Taxpayers and their advisers have experienced the worst of service in 2023 and the staff cuts only mean that the taxpayer service will remain poor and more likely deteriorate in 2024.
Another concern is that an increasingly complex tax landscape and more people being dragged into higher rates of tax will apply more pressure to HMRC staff. The 2021 Budget started the recent trend of “stealth tax” measures, when it was announced that the income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold were to be frozen from April 2022 until 2026.
As a result, many will have found themselves paying tax for the first time and the number of taxpayers paying higher rates of income tax has dramatically increased. It's not difficult to see why the demands on HMRC customer services would increase!
Perhaps another HMRC shambles that could have been avoided?