Hi

I had to check that it isn't the 1st of April this morning when I read the news that HMRC are closing their self-assessment help line for three months.The sudden closure decision was taken with no prior consultation and gives taxpayers only four days’ warning. 

For the next three months customers (as they like to call us) will be unable to speak to 'customer services' while HMRC staff all go on holiday.

Apparently HMRC is 'trialling a seasonal model' (you couldn't make that up!).

HMRC has been unfit for purpse for years but now it thinks so little of the taxpayers who pay most of the tax that funds public services that they won't even speak to us!

How has it come to this? How much longer are we expected to put up with public services that would shame some third world countries?

It beggars belief.

Noel Guilford