Policy paper

HMRC issue briefing: support for customers who need extra help

Published 3 April 2019

HMRC support for customers who need extra help getting their tax right

HMRC recognises that some of our customers may need extra support from us. It might be because they are having difficulty with their tax affairs or because they are dealing with a major life event, such as preparing for retirement or a family bereavement.

Our contact centre advisers are trained to identify customers who need extra help above and beyond the service that we already provide.

That includes passing customers to a specialist team who are able to resolve many tax and tax credits queries in a single call, taking advice from experts across HMRC, so the customer doesn’t have to speak to more than one person.

Where appropriate, our mobile advisers can meet customers in their home, or somewhere convenient nearby, to talk through the issues in a friendly and supportive way.

Help from others

HMRC also works with voluntary and community sector organisations so they can help customers who come to them. And we’ll signpost customers to organisations that can offer assistance that we can’t, whether it’s independent support from Citizen’s Advice or help dealing with stress or anxiety from Mind.

Where necessary, a customer can nominate a friend or family member to deal with their tax affairs on their behalf.

Supporting customers during a tax investigation

Sometimes HMRC will need to look into an individual’s tax affairs (known as a compliance check). We recognise this can cause worry, and customers can expect us to respect them, and to act professionally and with integrity at all times. All of this, including what we expect from customers in return, is set out in our Charter.

Whenever HMRC opens a compliance check, we will ask the customer if there is anything in their personal circumstances that we need to consider, or if they have any underlying health conditions that we should know about before we start.

Where necessary, we can pause our compliance check so a customer can get extra support, for example from their financial adviser, or organisations such as Citizen’s Advice or TaxAid. Where appropriate, we can give customers longer to gather information, or to reach a decision about how they want to proceed.

If it reaches a tax tribunal, we will make sure that customers who need extra help, or who are unrepresented, are supported in developing their position. This can include helping them prepare their submission, or making sure the appropriate evidence is brought to the tribunal’s attention.

Support for customers with tax debts

All individuals and businesses have to pay their tax on time and it is HMRC’s legal duty to make sure that happens. But we have no desire to make things difficult for taxpayers, and will always take a fair and even-handed approach to those who genuinely want to settle their affairs.

Any taxpayer who is facing difficulty in making a tax payment can ask about affordable payment options. We can tailor these payment options according to a customer’s circumstances. And if we see that a customer is genuinely prepared to pay but has limited means, we can discuss spreading the payments out over years, with no upper limit.

We have a strong track record of helping people pay what they owe in a manageable way. In fact, 90% of the arrangements that we agree with customers are completed successfully, showing they are responsive to people’s needs. In January 2019, we had around 700,000 arrangements in place covering the full range of our work, worth a total of £2.1 billion.

We recognise the worry that can come with a tax debt so where we recognise that a customer needs additional help, we will move them out of our usual debt collection process and pass them to our dedicated Needs Extra Support (NES) team.

Ongoing work to support customers who need extra help

HMRC is always looking to improve the way that it supports customers who need additional help to get their tax right.

Our new Customer Experience Committee will play a crucial role in supporting and challenging our Executive Committee to improve the customer experience it delivers to all its customers. The committee includes independent customer experience members from a wide range of industries and sectors, who share their learning and best practice.

We also work with the voluntary and community sector and the Low Income Tax Reform Group to ensure that we support all customers, particularly those who need the most help. We are also working with other public sector organisations to enhance the vulnerable customer training and guidance that we give our investigation teams.

We also plan to extend our NES service to customers who are going through compliance checks. We expect to roll this out across the UK over the next 12 to 18 months.