16 August 2011
New HMRC Civil Disorder helpline for those affected by recent riots
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have announced a single helpline number – 0845 366 1207 (see below for text relay details) – to help businesses and individuals (including tax credits customers) adversely affected by the rioting and looting in England last week. HMRC’s Civil Disorder helpline will be available from 8.00am to 8.00pm, seven days a week.
HMRC says it is determined to do all it can to help and the dedicated Civil Disorder helpline is intended to provide comprehensive advice and deal sympathetically with problems currently faced by businesses and individuals (including tax credits customers).
What will HMRC do ?
In particular, HMRC will:
- agree payment schedules with those who are unable to pay their tax bills due to short-term financial difficulties; and
- discuss the practical solutions where businesses and individuals cannot meet their other obligations to HMRC – for instance, their records have been lost or destroyed in the disturbances.
In these circumstances, and whenever possible, HMRC will review any penalties imposed and withhold additional surcharges that would normally be triggered by missed deadlines.
Contact HMRC
If you want to talk about how the disorder has affected you in relation to the tax system (including tax credits), please contact HMRC on the helpline number. To help speed things up please have your taxpayer reference number to hand e.g. your National Insurance number, the tax office reference on your payslip or annual form P60, the Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) for Self Assessment customers, or VAT number for VAT-registered businesses.
For tax credits matters, we understand that staff on the Civil Disorder helpline may need to transfer you through to the Tax Credit Helpline.
If you are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech impairment
If you have a speech impairment, are deaf or hard of hearing and use a textphone you can contact HMRC by text relay or by textphone.
Text Relay
You can contact HMRC by dialling the Text Relay service prefix number 18001 followed by the HMRC telephone number.
Textphone and other contact details can be found using this link.