LITRG: Not enough support offered by HMRC

Date: 2nd February 2010

The Low Income Tax Reform Group (LITRG) has said it is "not surprised" that a large number of people put off filling out online self-assessment tax return forms.

According to the organisation, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) did not offer help to taxpayers who had only little experience in dealing with its online service.

After monitoring the level of support taxpayers received over the final weekend before HMRC's January 31st deadline, LITRG has said the level of assistance was "not consistently good" and was "poor" at some times.

The group said this was "not good enough" given that more than 6.4 million taxpayers used the service to file their returns.

Among the LITRG's criticisms was the fact that when the organisation made several calls to see how quickly they could get through to a "human" operator, they were put on hold for 14 minutes or simply asked to call back later.

The group also criticised the level of tax jargon used on the website.

A statement from LITRG said: "The HMRC online filing package has got better in recent years, but for the inexperienced user it is full of jargon and moving around the screens with confidence is not at all easy.

"Some sections are baffling even for experienced users."