HM Revenue & Customs has closed its self-assessment telephone helpline from 12th June until 4th September to pilot a 'seasonal model' that directs self-assessment tax queries from the helpline to an online guide with an automated webchat.
According to the Office for National Statistics, around 700,000 UK construction workers are self-employed. It has the highest level of self-employed jobs across the whole economy and therefore will be the sector most affected by HMRC’s cut-backs.
If you need to talk to an actual person, you have to wait until September.
Hudson Contract, which provides payroll services to a chunk of them, says that it has been contacted by self-employed tradespeople who are concerned at the move, which follows on from a service disruption last month’s industrial action at HMRC. The Public & Commercial Services Union said that only 63% of calls to the Construction Industry Scheme helpline were answered during the three-week strike.
Hudson Contract managing director Ian Anfield said: “We know from experience the helpline is by far the easiest way for subbies to quickly resolve any issues with their self-assessment, especially if they are paying higher than necessary tax deductions under CIS. It is simply not practical for tradespeople to get online, register for digital services and then look out for HMRC messages when they are busy working on building sites.
“We would urge HMRC to reopen the helpline. Some self-employed people use refunds from their tax returns to fund holidays, newly registered people are faced with a registration deadline in early October and the last date for paper submissions falls at the end of October. The helpline being closed now will impact all of these groups and HMRC will struggle with the backlog when it reopens in September.”
According to Office for National Statistics’ labour force survey, there was an average of 698,000 self-employed construction workers in Great Britain in 2021, a decrease of 27,000 (3.7%) compared with 2020.
There are other definitions of self-employment, however, including payment via the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). HMRC does not routinely reveal CIS numbers but a freedom of information request made by the Unite union in 2018 revealed that the total that year was 1.12 million.
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