Waiting to hear back from HMRC? How to check progress
You may have made (or tried to make) contact with HMRC by post or phone recently. If so, you may have been frustrated at how long it takes to get through on the helpline or receive a response by post. HMRC are aware that they are behind where they need to be when dealing with taxpayers. Here we highlight some tips on checking progress if you are waiting for a response.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) set themselves certain targets for dealing with members of the public. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, these service levels, perhaps understandably, worsened.
A couple of years on, with life for many people having largely returned to ‘normal’, can the same be said for all of HMRC’s service levels? The short answer is no!
While HMRC are making efforts to catch up, we have heard from people who continue to be frustrated by HMRC delays.
HMRC service dashboard
To help taxpayers understand which services are currently delayed, HMRC have created a service dashboard. This can be used to check the likely timeframe that HMRC are currently working to for various issues.
At the time of publishing this article, the service dashboard suggests that the following income tax and tax credit matters are suffering a delayed service:
| HMRC service line | HMRC target performance | HMRC current performance |
|---|---|---|
| R40 repayment claims | Reply within 15 days of being sent | 84 days |
| Repayment of tax from employment or pension (online claim) | Reply within 15 days of being sent | 70 days |
| Refund from an online SA return | Reply within 15 days of being sent | 70 days |
| Tax credits overpayment dispute | Reply within 15 days of being sent | 211 days |
If you are waiting to hear back from HMRC about any of the above matters, the message from HMRC (given on the dashboard) is not to contact them to chase progress unless you have been waiting longer than the time frame shown on the service dashboard.
Check when you can expect a reply from HMRC
In addition to the service dashboard, HMRC have also developed another tool ‘Check when you can expect a reply from HMRC’. This works in a similar way to the service dashboard described above, but allows you to enter the date that you sent your claim or correspondence, and the tool will give you a likely date by which you can expect to receive a reply.
At present, this tool can only provide an expected date of reply for the following matters:
Income tax
- Marriage allowance claims
-
P87 refund of employment expenses (postal and online claims)
-
Refund of tax paid from an employment or pension (postal and online claims)
Self Assessment
- Registration for Self Assessment (postal and online)
-
Paper Self Assessment tax return submission
-
Amendment to a Self Assessment tax return
-
Refund from an online or paper Self Assessment tax return
-
Penalty appeals (post and online)
Tax Credits
- Report a change of circumstances (postal and online)
-
Request an award notice
-
Dispute a tax credit overpayment
Child benefit
- Report a change of circumstances (postal and online)
-
Request a proof of entitlement letter
VAT
- VAT registration or deregistration
Corporation Tax
- Repayment due to loss carry back
Paper Self Assessment tax returns and other time-sensitive postal documents
Currently, HMRC are not reporting any ‘delay’ to the processing of paper Self Assessment tax returns on their service dashboard. At the moment, the service dashboard says that all paper tax returns received before 31 October 2022 (the paper filing deadline) will be processed before 31 December 2022.
If you have already submitted your tax return for the 2021/22 tax year on paper, you might be concerned in the run up to the 31 October 2022 deadline if you have not heard from HMRC to confirm that it has been received – what if the paper return has been lost in the post?
At the date of writing this article, the ‘Check when you can expect to receive a reply from HMRC’ tool suggests that if your paper tax return is received by HMRC today you will not receive a reply until 8 January 2023. This means that you would not expect to get confirmation that the return has been safely received until well past the 31 October deadline.
If you are concerned, you could consider calling HMRC who may be able to confirm that the item of post has been received, even if the tax return has not yet been processed. For the purposes of the deadline, provided the tax return was physically received before the deadline, then no late filing penalty should be due.
We recommend that when you are sending in a paper form or claim that is time-sensitive, for example because there is a deadline, you should always send to HMRC with proof of posting. Using a service such as Royal Mail’s ‘Signed for’ service is ideal, though it can be costly, so the next best thing would be to get proof of postage stamped at the post office counter. Making sure you have some sort of proof of postage could help you appeal a late filing penalty or appeal an HMRC decision to refuse a claim for relief if the post happens to go missing at HMRC’s end.