Phone calls to UK’s Revenue & Customs cost taxpayers millions annually

PressTV - Phone calls to UK’s Revenue & Customs cost taxpayers millions annually

It was,in the past, possible to phone your local tax office and discuss any issues.  Of course, that meant that every office had to employ staff, to handle these queries, which was costly. So they decided to have call centres covering geographical areas. Again, setting them up cost money and so the wheeze to pay for it all was to charge premium rates.
Personally, I thought that the old system was good for the Revenue in hat the junior staff, answering the phone, got a flavour of tax issues and became trained, without the classroom. I now advise people to write in to their tax office. Then their letters must be recorded as being incoming, sent, internally, to an inspector, logged into files after they find them, answers sorted and typed and then posted back to the client.  This is the dearest form that I can think off. It takes at least 10 days and there is always the possibility that the Royal Mail will lose the letters either going or  returning and you gotta start all over again!!