From the 8th April HMRC will be changing the operating hours of its customer support helplines – in some cases closing them entirely – in an attempt to push customers to use online services more.
Self assessment – personal tax
The helpline for self assessment for personal tax will be closed completely from 8th April to 30th September, with it reopening during what HMRC deems to be its ‘busy’ time from 1st October leading up to the filing deadline of 31st January. The helpline will be available in February and March 2025 for queries about penalties and appeals.
Anyone calling will be re-directed to the online services, and the webchat services will continue as normal, although there is no confirmation yet if there will be additional capacity on this service.
VAT
The VAT helpline will only be open for 5 business days each month leading up to and including the VAT filing deadline of 7th of each month. HMRC web chat services will be available the rest of the time.
PAYE
The PAYE helpline will no longer handle refunds, this will be redirected to online chat.
Anyone who cannot use the online services or if they have a health condition or disability preventing them from doing so will be asked to call a separate number for specialist support.
At the moment, the Agent Dedicated Lines – those for use by accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisers – are unchanged so our advice is to engage an accountant as soon as possible for your business as agents need time to be authorised by HMRC to deal with your affairs on your behalf.
UPDATE: The very next day after the original announcement was made, HMRC issued a statement saying that the changes were being ‘postponed’.