HMRC: Tax Returns

Lord Sikka Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend will be very pleased to know that I phoned HMRC on Monday and eventually managed to speak to a person. I did not tell them who I was, and I do not have very complex tax affairs. It was something very simple, but it could be done only by a real person.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, it is very interesting that the Minister here is defending an IT system installed by Fujitsu, after what we heard about the scandal at the Post Office. Coming back to the broader issue, as a result of fiscal drag there are more people filing self-assessment tax returns. Can the Minister tell us how many more people have been employed to handle the telephone queries? I have tried and I was unable to get through at all.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

First, let me clarify that I am not defending Fujitsu or any other software— I am not sure where the noble Lord got that from. It is the case that more people will be filling in self-assessment tax returns, but it is also the case that, given the current figures, it seems that people are perfectly capable of doing so. By 1 January, 6.49 million people had completed their self-assessment tax return; that is 200,000 more people than last year and well over half of those whom we would expect by this stage, so at this current time we are not seeing a significant drop-off of people being unable to fill in a tax return.