Tax code errors cost over £1,000 a year.

Tax code errors could cost a 'huge number of people' over £1,000 a year, financial group warns

Workers may have been sent the wrong tax codes following the introduction of a new computer system at HM Revenue & Customs, a tax group warned today.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation believes wrong information may have been sent out to 'huge numbers of people' and warned that unless it was corrected, it could cost them hundreds of pounds.

The group said many people with only one job were being sent two or more tax coding notices with different tax codes.

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An HMRC spokesman said: 'The new IT system is improving the accuracy of the PAYE so that more people than ever before are correctly taxed.


'Anyone in this position should check their code using the guidance included with the code and on our website, www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax

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Reform the Tax Credit system

Pocket Guide to Liberal Democrat Policies 2009, (Subject to possible change)

Reform the Tax Credit system – Low income families should be able to sleep easy at night knowing that the payment they receive is right and won’t be clawed back.

We will make payments fixed for 6 months (unless a family experiences a large and unexpected drop in income) so families are not constantly paying tax credits
back.

We will also reduce the number of people eligible for Tax Credits who are on higher incomes and use the resulting savings to increase education spending for the most deprived children.

Taxman ignored 44 million calls

Taxman ignored 44 million calls

HM Revenue and Customs failed to answer about 44 million calls last year, the Whitehall spending watchdog has disclosed.

The National Audit Office (NAO) described the performance of HMRC's 31 customer "contact centres" during the course of 2008-09 as "unacceptable".

Despite employing the equivalent of 10,500 full-time staff at the centres at a cost of £233 million, HMRC still failed to pick up 43% of the 103 million calls it received during the year.

During the busiest periods - such as the tax credit renewals peak in July - just one in three calls (33%) was actually answered.

Callers who did get through had to wait an average two minutes for a reply - or almost four minutes if they were ringing at peak times.

That contrasted with best practice in the private sector where the target is for 90% of all calls to be picked up within 10 seconds.

Although the latest figures for the first half of 2009-10 have shown some improvement by HMRC, the NAO said that more than one in four calls - 27% - were still not getting a reply.

In the private sector, the benchmark is that no more than 10% of calls should go unanswered.