Infuriating cost of calling taxman

A.G. writes: Are others experiencing, like me, a wait of up to an hour on the phone to reach a real person at Revenue & Customs? As it is not a free number, we are paying a huge amount just to wait in a queue. The Revenue has an annoying system that makes you listen to automated messages, a robot asks you the nature of your enquiry, then repeats it back to you, then repeats your National Insurance number, and then cuts you off as the revenue is too busy to take your call.

YOU are not alone. Your letter will strike a chord with anyone who has tried to make an enquiry about their income tax.

Once upon a time, you could walk into any local tax office and make an enquiry at the counter. Today, this is impossible and you have to think twice before wasting time and money on a phone call. The taxman uses 0300 numbers which charge up to 10p a minute from a landline and up to 40p a minute from a mobile.

Revenue officials tell me none of this money goes to them, and all of it goes to the network provider.

They are recruiting extra staff for their helplines and, they say, have cut the average waiting time to just over 12 minutes.

All I can say from personal experience is that some callers must have been very lucky. My own calls have had me listening over and over again to the infuriating message telling me the answer to my question might well be found by looking at the Revenue’s website.

It is tempting to scream ‘Liar!’ back at the robot. Could the taxman not play this message just once or twice rather than indefinitely?

A spokesperson told me: ‘These messages are not something we have plans to change.’ And it dares to call us ‘customers’ nowadays instead of ‘taxpayers’.