Help for taxpayers can’t wait
The MP for Taunton and Wellington, Gideon Amos, has demanded the launch a hotline for pensioners, after new figures revealed that more than 80 million calls to HMRC have gone unanswered over the last decade.
Research by the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the party’s Trade and Investment Spokesperson Joshua Reynolds MP, shows that one in five calls to HMRC went unanswered in the last decade, leaving taxpayers without support.
In 2024-25 alone, over six million calls went unanswered - more than 17,000 people every day on average unable to get help from the tax service.
The Liberal Democrats are warning that, with the state pension now just £22 away from the Income Tax threshold, thousands more retirees could soon be dragged into paying tax for the first time. But with HMRC’s customer service in crisis, many may struggle to get advice or information they desperately need. The party is calling for a dedicated hotline to give pensioners a direct, reliable route to HMRC support, especially for those less comfortable using online systems.
The latest data shows that, in 2024-25, the average HMRC call waiting time was 18 minutes and 38 seconds, the second-longest in the past decade. In some years, pickup rates fell as low as 72%, meaning almost a third of callers never got through.
Mr Amos said: “HMRC expects tax to be paid not only on time but nowadays even in advance of when it is due, yet it can’t even answer the phone to those who pay it.
“Why shouldn’t they be expected to pick up like other organisations do? It is simply not acceptable that so many people in Taunton and Wellington and across the country can’t get through – whether they are one of the two million extra pensioners dragged into paying tax by the Conservatives’ decision to freeze personal allowances, or a small business hit so hard recently by higher business rates, wage bills and employer National Insurance contributions.
“The failure to answer the phone at HMRC has been ignored by both Conservative and Labour governments – we’re all still hanging on for someone to pick up the call for action. It really is time this poor service was addressed, and I’d like to see a hotline for retirees, so they get the help they need in a timely fashion, given the worry and stress tax bills often cause.”