Richard's Good News Story of the week concerns sorting out an issue with HMRC.
"Miss L from Billericay got in touch with me via my website regarding a peculiar set of affairs with HMRC.
In her message, Miss L was asking for some help to chase down a complaint with HMRC following them messing up her tax records for the last four years. Helping nudge complaints in the right direction is bread and butter to an MP.
But, as my team were helping her and to progress the complaint, we saw how ridiculous the situation was and the effect this was having on Miss L.
Whilst Miss L did a splendid job with all of her own administration, I wanted to still help out more than ensuring her complaint was lodged. I contacted HMRC to highlight the complaint but also the entire situation and how they need to get a grip.
Fortunately, as it’s a complicated situation, HMRC called Miss L a couple of times to explain what has gone wrong and to fully resolve it for her, including providing a compensation payment for their poor service of a couple of hundred pounds.
And, even more reassuringly, HMRC will monitor her tax affairs going forwards to ensure this does not affect her again, and also will use her case as a training example for staff to improve their own service.
Now, I’m hoping what happened to Miss L was an anomaly and won’t become routine casework, as this was a clear failing in the system. But it’s not something I knew about until she contacted me via my website.
So, if you’re facing an odd issue and you’re not sure how to resolve it, or perhaps you’re waiting ages for an organisation to respond to you, or literally anything else, then please drop me a message through my website here: https://www.richardholden.org.uk/contact.
Whilst I cannot fix every problem, I’ll always give it my all, alongside my team."
