HMRC-is it time to call the Army in?

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Rebecca Cave's quotes below...does that make Sir Jim an enshittifier?

That dictionary defines enshittification as: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

I believe this is what we are seeing with the UK tax service.

Last year I noted the creeping cost of tax compliance as the free online filing services provided by HMRC are gradually restricted or completely withdrawn. I asked for a debate on the important issue of who should be entitled to use free ;ompliance software and who must pay to file.

That debate has not happened.

However, HMRC continues to remove and restrict its free online filing services to make space for commercial providers to sell software to those customers who have no choice but to pay to file, or pay a penalty.

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Meeting on 6 March...Sir Jim's last public appearance in front of those asking the questions:

Q28 Lloyd Hatton: You currently calculate that the cost of customer time is £18.66 per hour. That is three years out of date now, so can we expect that to be to be refreshed to reflect how much time it might cost an individual to administer their own tax?

Lucy Pink: That is an internal calculator that sometimes helps us give a bit of an understanding.

Q29 Lloyd Hatton: If it is three years out of date, you can appreciate why an individual might think that the HMRC perhaps has a slightly distorted understanding of how much time people spend administering their tax.

Lucy Pink: As recommended by the NAO, we are going to look into the feasibility of what we can do to try to give up-to-date cumulative assessments regarding individuals. When we publish our tax information and impact notes, we try to give qualitative assessments. As I say, we do have an up-to-date understanding of wider individuals’ experience, and that is where we focus our attention. Our feedback from individuals is that that is where they want to make us look in terms of where their pain points are with the overall administrative system in general.

Q30 Lloyd Hatton: If I could press a bit further there, we have touched on this previously when you have come before this Committee. In total, taxpayers spent 719 years on hold to HMRC in the past year, so you can understand why, if an individual watching this today sees that the internal figure that you use is three years out of date, they might say, “This is why HMRC has a slightly distorted understanding of how much time, money and energy is wasted by an individual on administering their tax”.