HMRC delays must be fixed or we will lose entrepreneurs – and get rid of the chatbots, says ANGHARAD CARRICK

This is a tough time for small businesses. Energy bill support has been dire, business rates are through the roof and the hospitality industry is crying out for support.

There have been calls for the Government to step in and fix all of these things. 

But if the Prime Minister was really serious about supporting business, he would first sort out the mess at HM Revenue & Customs.

Complaints about HMRC have skyrocketed. Its own most recent annual report shows that customer satisfaction dipped from 85.2 per cent in 2020-21, to 82 per cent in 2021-22.  It is currently at 79.2 per cent, the lowest level since 2018.

Ditch the chatbots: If the Government was serious about helping business, it would sort out HMRC 

Many of these unsatisfied customers will have experienced the delays in service that are currently plaguing the department. 

Over the past few months, I have heard from countless small business owners about their HMRC woes.

Common themes emerge. Delays to basic tasks like VAT registration make the permanent closure of the dedicated VAT helpline in June nonsensical.

The bizarre temporary ‘seasonal’ closure of the self-assessment helpline over the summer was also senseless.

HMRC bosses, when hauled in front of senior MPs, admitted the department ‘ran out of time’ to communicate this closure to customers, and said demand for the helpline far exceeded its forecasts.

If even those in charge don’t have an idea of what’s going on, how on earth can we expect business owners to navigate the tax system?

We will lose out on entrepreneurs, not because we don’t have the capability or investment, but because we can’t get the simple things right.

HMRC should have the capability to manage the hundreds of thousands of people that file tax returns every year. It should not have closed the helpline for three months without warning.

But more than anything else, HMRC’s push towards getting people to manage their taxes digitally – rather than on the phone or by post – has been executed appallingly.

To be fair to HMRC, its figures show that the vast majority of queries it faces through its helpline can be simply done online.

It says it receives more than 3million calls per year regarding three things that can be done digitally: resetting an online password, getting a tax code and getting a national insurance number.

HMRC claims it takes 500 people working full-time to answer those calls. 

There absolutely should be more of a focus on encouraging people to use their common sense and avoid clogging up helplines. 

And for many businesses, a modern online system that worked efficiently would be a welcome alternative to numerous letters in the post.

However, HMRC is putting too much faith into online chatbots. We must stop underestimating people’s desire to talk to real people.

Chatbots allow customers to exchange written messages with customer service staff, in a format similar to the messaging apps they might use to speak to their friends. 

They can be useful for delivery updates for your online shopping or finding out your bank account balance, but tax is infinitely more complicated and stressful.

Business owners using the HMRC chatbots are forced to wait months to hear back, and more often than not, they just want to pay their tax bill correctly.

If people had support the first time round – by speaking to a trained professional – it might be able to save more time and money down the line.

And if HMRC had been successful in its digital pivot, it would help justify the vast numbers of customer services roles it has cut since 2015.

It cannot just hope for an overnight shift in how people use HMRC’s services. Instead it needs to hire and crucially retain people to get through the huge backlog of delays.

Only then will people feel confident enough in HMRC to entrust a chatbot to help deal with their tax affairs. 

The Prime Minister wants to stimulate the economy and encourage more people to start their own business, but the system isn’t letting them.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk