Tax advice services face extra costs, warns PCS
The plan to close all 281 of the UK’s walk-in tax enquiry centres is “deeply flawed” and will cost more than it will save, according to the leading trade union for civil servants.
The Public Commercial and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has questioned HMRC’s claim that each taxpayer visit costs the department an average of £152 – which the union estimates to amount to £380m a year, more than 10% of the taxman’s total annual running expenses.
The government accounced in March that it hoped to save money by replacing face-to-face offices with a mobile advice service. A five-month pilot of the new approach will begin in the northeast of England on Monday (3 June) and run until 31 October.
In its written response to the consultation doc on the matter, the PCS this week said it could not find a single Revenue employee who believes the plan will work, and it criticised the tax department for including in its financial calculations the costs of entire buildings in which enquiry centres are located, even though many occupy no more than a single room.
“We believe these proposals will cost more than they will save. As well as extra costs needed for mobile teams, money will be lost to the economy due to the loss of local tax compliance,” claimed the union, which warned that the change of service “will mean that more people will pay the wrong amount or no tax at all”.
The written submission predicted a cost “on a personal level to those who are no longer able to get access to local advice”. It also suggested that a switch to mobile support would undermine HMRC’s claim to be clamping down on avoidance and evasion and “could see more taxpayers with the wrong tax code, or families getting into financial difficulties because they are not getting access to information about their tax credits”.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said, “The government's proposal to entirely shut down this vitally important public service is fundamentally wrong and its consultation is deeply flawed and should be scrapped.
“Not only do the offices provide a lifeline for vulnerable taxpayers, they also provide a crucial link between our communities and the taxes we pay to fund the other public services we all rely on.”
