Since the Inland Revenue merged with H M Customs & Excise in 2005 to become HMRC, you and I have been referred to as customers rather than taxpayers. In fact, the trend probably started a little before then. How can we possibly be customers? Customers, by definition, are people who purchase a commodity or service and HMRC is not an organisation that someone can decide whether or not to do business with.
As Mike Truman, the editor of 'Taxation' magazine says, “We are not buying anything from them, and we do not have a choice about whether to interact with them.”
The strength of feeling regarding this issue caused the 'Taxation' editor to voice his agitation recently in his own magazine. Mr Truman calls for HMRC to stop using business terminology and revert to referring to us all as 'taxpayers' or 'claimants' according to the nature of a person's dealings with HMRC.
As Truman points out, an individual who is the subject of investigation for serious fraud is not a customer of the investigatory unit and should not be treated as such anyhow.
We used to be referred to as 'taxpayers' by the Revenue but press releases over the years replaced the term with 'customer' and the departments own manuals have followed suit.
So what was the rationale for turning us all into 'customers'? HMRC give two reasons. Firstly, ever since HMRC were handed responsibility for areas such as National Insurance and tax credits, 'taxpayer' could not properly describe the people they deal with. The second reason is that it was intended to instil in HMRC staff a 'customer service' mentality when dealing with the public.
Whilst Revenue senior management seem helpless to avoid referring to us all as “customers” when communicating amongst themselves that's fine so long as they remember to refrain from using it when talking to taxpayers, claimants and their advisers.
Mr Truman wants HMRC to revert to a professional civil service model, reviving the traditional values of the civil service and stop pretending to being a business. He says, “I don't want HMRC to treat me as a customer. In fact, I don't want the focus to be on me at all. I want it to be on them and their staff.” Although this may conjure bureaucratic overtones, the trade off of an independent, properly trained, professional department with greater integrity and providing a public service outweigh any negative consequences.
If HMRC want to provide us with greater and more efficient service then they should start by looking at themselves and understanding the fact that they are not a business, far from it, and we are not their customers. We are obligatory members of a non-exclusive club to whom we begrudgingly pay our annual fees and we should be properly referred to as 'taxpayers'. If you feel, as I do, that HMRC should stop calling us customers then you can sign the e-petition that calls for exactly this, by visiting http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/17771.
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