Wise action on HMRC service issues

Last month (see Tax Journal dated 5 August page 8) I welcomed two recommendations in the House of Commons Treasury Committee report Administration and Efficiency of HM Revenue & Customs.

The first was that HMRC should work closely with external stakeholders to ‘develop a series of performance indicators that credibly reflect customers’ end-to-end experience of dealing with HMRC’.

The second was that HMRC staff should spend time visiting businesses tax charities and tax practices to gain an external perspective.

Like the Treasury Select Committee I believe that service standards will only really improve when HMRC see the reality of service delivery from the ‘customer’ viewpoint.

I had not expected things to develop so quickly. In August the ICAEW CIOT ICAS ACCA...