Chaos In The Uk Tax Office

British MP's have been told that the tax and customs authorities in the UK are "stretched almost to breaking point" and are rapidly losing the trust of members of the public

It has been disclosed that the Tax office employs badly trained staff who very often provide incorrect advice.

I know this to be true as I have recently rang the Tax Office and had to speak to quite a few people and only after three or four calls did I find out the answers to the questions that I was seeking.

The first person that I spoke to was in a call centre in Hampshire and her advice was wrong. Basically she sent me on a wild goose chase and I ended up making calls chasing for forms that are no longer required and what was required was to file online but she did not know that. The Idea of filing online is fine, what an excellent idea, but no good if the staff do not know what they are doing is it?

Under the previous Labour PM, Gordon Brown, Income Tax has become far too complicated and when he was Chancellor Brown kept introducing stealth taxes which came into effect a year later so by the time they came in to effect people had forgotten them but they made the UK tax system far to complicated.

Under the Labour government the two seperate arms of HM Customs & Excise and Inland Revenue were combined to form one department Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was formed on the 18 April 2005, after a merger of Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise Departments. As they advise on their very own web site "Work is still continuing on our office restructuring programme". From my personal experience they have yet to start on their education and training systems.

There has undoubtedly been a lot of difficulties effecting this merger and initialy it was believed that a merger would be more efficient and generate cash savings. It would seem that the very opposite is true.

It is believed that more experienced tax office staff over the age of 50 have left the service having been replaced by personnel who have a very limited understanding of the income tax system and are poorly trained.

It would appear that they are fully aware of their failings as a spokesman for the HMRC stated "We are determined to improve those areas of our business that are currently not delivering the quality of service to which we aspire".

Lets hope that they soon improve this service as quickly as possible as it is estimated that there are substantial numbers of employees who are due uk tax refunds.