HMRC’s communication with taxpayers

Key points

• Could HMRC communication be improved?
• An annual tax summary does not indicate that estimated amounts have been included.
• Taxpayers must identify estimates; why not HMRC?
• Could the income tax collection method be clearer on a P800 calculation?
• The personal digital tax account is a welcome and useful facility.

I am sure most Taxation readers will have seen examples of hilarious notices written in English by someone who doesn’t speak the language. There are pages of them on the internet. Foreigners eh? What are they like? The average Angle of course avoids similar embarrassments by sticking rigidly to the mother tongue spoken slowly and increasingly loudly until the meaning becomes clear to the listener. Much wiser of course than trying to sound idiomatic in someone else’s lingo.

The obvious question is: if someone wants to communicate in another language why don’t they ask a native speaker to read a...