The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has stated that understaffing at HMRC is causing unacceptable delays and is hindering economic activity for businesses. It said that obtaining basic tax details is taking months and causing knock on delays for companies.
HMRC replied that most correspondence was answered within 15 days, it answered around 70,000 calls a day and that the customer satisfaction was consistently around 80%. Although it did admit that there have been problems caused by a significant attack from VAT fraudsters in July 2022.
However, the ICAEW has said that the information is processed too slow and is holding up normal trade which is unacceptable. The ICAEW has called on ministers to create an emergency task force to eliminate the backlog and improve standards.
The full article can be found here.