Now taxman wants you to complain by text

IF YOU’RE sick of waiting on the phone for the taxman, there is a new way to get in touch.

Taxpayers are being encouraged to use a messaging service — similar to WhatsApp, which is popular among young people — to raise queries.

HM Revenue & Customs hopes this will reduce queues at its telephone help centres.

While a call handler can speak to just a couple of people an hour, a messaging service worker can help up to five simultaneously. Last month it emerged one in four calls to the taxman went unanswered last year, so busy are its phone lines.

It meant HMRC was forced to divert £45 million of taxpayers’ cash to fix the call centre chaos, and recruit an extra 3,000 staff.

Bosses say the new messaging service, accessed from the HMRC website, will resemble WhatsApp in that users can respond immediately to messages.

With the HMRC service, a pop-up box on its income tax website will ask taxpayers if they require help with a query.

The new system is currently being trialled and should be fully up and running in the coming months.

In addition to this service, HMRC has unveiled the online personal tax account that will eventually replace the tax return.

In the future, instead of filling in a lengthy form, taxpayers’ details will be entered automatically. They will also be able to see how much tax they owe and whether they have overpaid or underpaid in previous years.

However, users will be responsible for checking that the information HMRC enters on their behalf is correct.

More than five million businesses and ten million individuals are expected to be signed up to the account by early 2016.

However, those who want to continue using paper tax returns will be able to do so.