HMRC is nudging taxpayers to find answers to their questions on gov.uk rather than calling their helplines.
It has already closed the VAT registration helpline, as the vast majority of calls to that line were chasing VAT registration applications, which now take at least 40 working days to approve. If you want to know when your VAT number will be assigned, HMRC ask you to use the Where’s my reply? online tool on its webpages.
If you call HMRC for another reason, you will be asked by the computer to state the reason for your call. Where your answer is interpreted by the software as being a routine query and you are calling from a mobile phone, you will receive an SMS message containing a link to the relevant information, then the call will be disconnected.
Answers for many of the 18 “routine queries”, such as your income or employment history, can be found in your online personal tax account (www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account).
Please ask us if you can’t get an answer from HMRC.
