Hmrc Arvostelua 

After Quilter made an error and taxed me at 40% on a pension lump sum rather than 20% which is in accordance with the tax code they had on record, I made a claim to HMRC for a refund of difference on 17.12.25. The HMRC website states I should have received my refund or at least a reply by 23.1.26 at the latest.
Well, I have received absolutely no refund nor communication whatsoever.
I have chased 3 times. It takes ages to get through. The agents are powerless & basically palm you off & leave you none the wiser. So, that's it. I have to wait to find out if I will ever get my refund. Can you just imagine it, if things were the other way around! They would put a charge on my house.
HMRC, get your act together, you are letting people down and when you hold others to such high standards and don't follow said standards yourself, it is not good.
Please update your website to add further details of what is causing the delay and update the expected payment and/or reply date. Thank you

Disgraceful wait times to get through. The advisors are generally good, but if you have an issue that requires different teams.... good luck and take a week off work to sort it out. Truth be told, you'll likely give up for your own mental health. HMRC is a national embarrassment!

The app is useless and identity check. Dreadful. Disgusting

always takes ages for them to answer the phone, a lot of consultants are lacking knowledge, and most importantly the will to assist the customer.
Many of them just couldn't care less.
consultant I wanted to speak with after waiting about 30 mins on very annoying background music, couldn't wait 2 mins for me to find out some information, useless.

Absolutely shocking experience with HM Revenue and Customs. This is now the NINTH time they’ve chased me for a tax bill I already paid back in October — and I’ve provided proof EIGHT separate times. Every single time it’s the same cycle: letters, stress, wasted time, and zero accountability.

I have spent over 8 hours trying to call, only to sit on hold for 40–45 minutes before the line cuts off. No resolution, no proper review of the evidence, just automated chasing and administrative incompetence.

For an organisation responsible for managing the country’s finances, the level of inefficiency is frankly embarrassing. If a taxpayer ignored correspondence this many times, there would be penalties — yet when HMRC repeatedly ignore documented proof of payment, there are no consequences at all.

This isn’t just poor service, it’s exhausting and unnecessarily stressful for people who have actually done the right thing and paid what they owe.

The government gateway is absolutely useless. Everytime I come to use it my log in has been cancelled and I have to spend ages going through the rigmorole of putting selfies of myself on line together with photos of passports. Wouldnt mind doing it once but every time you need anything is a total nonsense. Gave up and phoned instead

Written communication is poor, and slow. I have found the staff that I have spoken with to be helpful and competent. However, the communication with respect to where and when payments (outside of the standard payments) need to be made is poor.
No date on when a payment is due, and no details of where to pay it when doing it online.
Plus I am not a customer - a customer purchases a good or service. HMRC do not provide a service.

Ive been owed a £310 refund for months and all the help I can get is a useless chat bot answer that tells me NOTHING.

I downloaded the HMRC app to make my life easier. I have tried submitting my self assessment, however I am in a loop now, and I cannot submit my assessment, so now I am being fined a late penalty???
Dreadful service from a government agency.,

Absolutely fantastic help received. Friendly and patient and resolved my issue. Thank you to Shannon in the Online Services Helpdesk team.

Well i knew HMRC were bad but they really surpassed themselves for just hiw bad they really are. Lies after lies and even trying to charge me more than I needed to pay and that was a manager. When I asked what would of happened if I had paid thst amount would i have got my money back to be told probably not Shocking. Probably would have used it for staff Christmas party to get drunk. The totally in ept staff who don't give a fart how they speak to you. Hang up the phone and also laugh while on the phone. Disgusting humans and vile company

Today I finally received the letters I had to ask for when I told them they had broken the Law by not sending a valid reason to close my complaint and wow they once again refused to except blame There way into putting the blame on me. Well let me tell you hmrc I will not be dealing again that I promise you im going to let the FCA do that when i submit everything i have on you And I hope you like this glowing review because your are noting but a bunch of fraudulent lieing nasty good for noting individuals who are no good to be even called human. Your employees especially scarlet are obviously trained to treat people with 0 care and taught us paying honest people are just a pile of dog muck and worthless. Ow but we line your theaving pockets and you get to feel amazing because you have treated someone like dirt so congratulations give yourself a massive pat on the back
Outrageous vile company

Trying to sort out access online to myself and my wife's tax accounts. Both of us can log in but neither of us can actually access our accounts - it just says that our details do not belong to the account. Rang HMRC, was in a queue for over 3/4 of an hour. Finally spoke to an advisor who took my details and after finding out they had my income details wrong as they had not included my carer's allowance, despite DWP having it on their system. Result £700 tax due. To solve the access issues they gave me details of the Digital Technical Support Team who should be able to sort this out. After two days of exchanging emails they now say I need to call the HMRC line that said I should contact them - going round in circles and no nearer a solution. I need it sorted ASAP as I am about to get my pension and I'm no further forward than I ws 3 days ago. We still cannot access our tax accounts. I have provided a host of details to prove I am the right person. Their customer service and online system are unfit for purpose. Being in a queue for the best part of an hour is unacceptable. I'm a full time carer and my time is important.

They want you to fail, systems and processes are just awful and totally inaccessible to someone that doesn't use this stuff a lot. I need to work out of i need to do a tax return due to breaching a threshold for getting child payment, and even though they have all the necessary information at their fingertips, they make you get it all and then faults on you for getting it wrong. Truly awful experience.

Worst customer service ever. I have been trying to login to my hmrc app facing issues. But nobody is willing to help in-fact they are just giving a runaround from one department to the other. Where should I go for help

Although I had to wait a while for a human to answer the service was excellent.
Ben offered me great advice, support and was very patience.

Appalling wait times on the phone, 40 min + and then getting cut off. They are quick to take your money, but when you have a problem, tough luck.

Last April I put in a claim for higher tax relief on my personal pension. They contacted me to say they needed a few more details which I sent and then waited. By November I'd heard nothing so contacted them and was told I'd get a reply by December. January I called again to be told it had been missed but they'd put it on priority and I would get a letter in 10 days. 10 days later and no letter so I called again and told they had no idea why they had not picked it up so they'd ask for a follow up and give them another 10 days. 10 days later nothing so called and told they were actually working on it now so just give them a week. A week later and nothing so called again (all these calls took 30 to 40 mins to speak to someone and very frustrating) on this call I was told all was good but they wanted one sentence added so they could process....I explained I did what was asked of me 40 weeks ago and in all that time no one sent anything else to say please add a further sentence. She said it's all we need and then can process it for you, I replied with ok I'll do that now but how long to process that and I was told they were getting more people in so time has reduced from 48 weeks to 40 weeks!..I gave up at this point and said keep the money I'm done and you've beaten me. The last thing I said was could I speak to a supervisor and I was told she would get someone to call me......Still waiting.

When the security questions were asked in the middle of the phone call!- I failed one because they asked for my P45 pay to date amount and apparently this did not match what the advisor had in front of them- on checking my account on line I have now realised this was because the amount they had in front of them included the taxable part of a lump sum payment- however I told the advisor i received the P45 before the lump sum so maybe they should have listened! So advisor would not speak to me any further- not at all helpful! Maybe if the tax office could tax things correctly in first place they wouldn't have so many people ringing them up! Disappointed with service.

Absolutely Shocking service, I am an agent and as an agent expect a helpful response as to why its taking so long to make my clients repayment! The woman spoke over me and all I could hear was a busy call centre in the background, very bad signal, she refused to have a conversation with me until I had done the online checker as to "when can i expect a response" I tried to explain there was a hold on my clients account last year and to check this hasn't happened again!! but she refused to listen and said she was following a guide!! Absolutely disgusted