Tax, national insurance, tax credits and the minimum wage are often difficult to understand. Those with questions frequently turn to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for answers, but the HMRC website is often out-of-date and confusing. Last year, Anne Redston launched the Cobweb Campaign to sweep out the dusty corners of this huge information database.
1 See National Audit Office (2010) Handling telephone enquiries para 1.
2 This is only one of five sites which announce changes. It is prefaced by the notice; “For other listings please see our News Releases, Online Service Headlines, Indirect taxes and duties updates and Guides and Business Briefs for ongoing changes and reforms to general tax and duty”.
3 There have subsequently been further, complicating changes announced in the 2009 Finance Act affecting those with earnings above £150,000, but these are not relevant for the purposes of this article.
4 Handling Telephone Enquiries National Audit Office Report 2010 at part 3. The NAO recommended that HMRC also institute ‘mystery shopping’ to evaluate better the quality of advice provided (para 17 of the Report), but this has so far been resisted by HMRC.