Proactive Investors - Brits spent nearly 800 years waiting to speak with an HM Revenue & Customs representative during 2023, new research from the government’s spending watchdog found.
HMRC failed to answer 45% of its taxpayers’ calls as it continues to suffer from a “declining spiral” of its customer service, the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed.
Those patient enough to wait for an adviser to answer were forced to wait 23 minutes on average, a sharp surge from the typical five-minute wait time recorded in 2019.
All in all, this added up to 798 years of waiting on the phone, soaring compared to the 365 years on hold in the prior year.
NAO said HMRC had limited its telephone services to “manage its workload” but claimed the cost-cutting measures, which have pushed Brits to use online alternatives, had failed to offer a “like-for-like replacement”.
Using HMRC’s new digital assistant, the auditing body found that less than half of the queries could be completed.
Over the last four years, the government’s tax office has slashed its frontline workforce by around 9%, a move the NAO believes was made without considering the effectiveness of its digital services.
HMRC had been planning to close down four of its helplines permanently in a bid to shave costs and move staff to new divisions, but this decision was vetoed by chancellor Jeremy Hunt.