Angry callers spend 47 minutes on hold for the taxman

FRUSTRATED callers tweeted HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) more than 11,500 times over the past year to complain about long waits to be answered.

Citizens Advice said those who complained via Twitter claimed to have spent an average of 47 minutes waiting to speak to someone at HMRC, noting that official figures suggested an aver- age wait of 10 minutes. The charity said one caller tweeted that they had tried to get through to HMRC on four occasions, waiting an hour each time.

Citizens Advice looked at complaints made to the HMRC Twitter account between September last year and August after those seeking help from the charity reported not being able to get through to HMRC to resolve issues.

The charity said in the past 12 months it helped with 295,000 queries which could have required people to contact HMRC. Three out of four cases specifically related to tax credits, while others included income tax, National Insurance contributions and child benefit.

An additional 67,000 people visit the tax credit pages of the Citizens Advice website every month, making it the third most visited section of the site.

The charity warned that the roll-out of Universal Credit and changes to tax credits could mean waiting times would further increase.

In June HMRC said it was setting £45 million aside to improve customer service after figures showed that 7.2 million phone calls in the past year – or 11 per cent – went through to a “busy” tone instead of the caller being able to speak to someone. September 2014 was a particularly bad month, with one in five (20.8 per cent) customers hearing a busy tone and being unable to join a phone queue.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “HMRC needs to urgently address the problems many people are experiencing with phone lines.”