Injection of £200m expected to help cut department costs
The government is to invest £200m in HMRC’s digital services, with the anticipation the increased functionality will reduce the department’s costs by £51m in 2015/16.
Up to two million people will be able to handle their tax affairs through their own online accounts by April 2015, according to the taxman. Users will be able to:
- self-serve their repayments;
- view their tax codes and see how they are made up;
- update their personal details;
- handle end-of-year reconciliation;
- report additional sources of income such as interest, rental and dividend income;
- receive targeted support when approaching retirement; and
- receive correspondence for the online services.
An estimated five million small businesses and their agents will be able to interact with HMRC digitally, and will be able to:
- access information through a personalised homepage;
- get direct access to all online transactions relevant to them;
- view a personalised tax calendar with alerts;
- complete transactions such as telling the Revenue they have ceased trading; and
- obtain answers to questions through tailored tools.
