Last week, MPs warned that the quality of customer service at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was so poor that it could be could be costing the country money.
In a strongly worded report, members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) accused the tax office of only answering half of the calls to its customer service team. MPs also cautioned that those running tax evasion and tax avoidance schemes were “running rings around the taxman".
Committee statistics said that HMRC responded to 72.5 percent of calls in 2014-15, a rate that dropped to 50 percent in the first half of this year.
Although the customer services team have a target of answering 80% of phone calls within five minutes, the damning report said that operators were only getting to 39% in this time.
