HM Revenue & Customs' (HMRC) mission is to collect the money that pays for the UK's public services and help families and individuals with targeted financial support. It aims to administer the tax system in the most simple, customer focused and efficient way, helping the honest majority to get their tax right.
Taxpayers pay around £270 billion a year in income tax and national insurance, around half of all tax revenue. Many people who pay income tax do not need to engage with HMRC on a regular basis. Most income tax (86%) is collected from employees under Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) and administered by employers. The remaining 14% of taxpayers who are self-employed or have other income sources are required to assess their own tax liabilities.
During the last five years, the National Audit Office and the Committee of Public Accounts have reported several times on HMRC's customer service. In 2013, the Committee of Public Accounts expressed concern that the prospects of fewer staff and more calls were a real risk to HMRC achieving acceptable standards of service. The NAO report will look at what HMRC has done to improve performance since the NAO last reported in 2012, and how HMRC plans to improve customer service and seek to understand whether the quality of HMRC's customer service might affect tax revenue.