The chief executive of HMRC has attributed a decline in customer service to a surge in queries from pensioners. Facing questions on HMRC's poor call handling times from the Public Accounts Committee, Sir Jim Harra highlighted that there had been a rise in enquiries from taxpayers owing to frozen thresholds as well as state pensioners paying tax for the first time. He added that the increase has placed "upward pressure" on HMRC's services, which have struggled to meet customer service targets. Sir Jim noted: "The state pension has always been a taxable source of income but obviously a combination of the frozen tax allowances and the triple lock mean that more and more state pensioners find that their total income is large enough to be subject to income tax." MPs on the committee also admonished HMRC for automatically hanging up on taxpayers after 70 minutes, with data showing that last year, the the tax office cut off 55,922 taxpayers after leaving them waiting on the phone for more than one hour and 10 minutes. Myrtle Lloyd, director general of customer services at HMRC, said: "The 70-minute limiter is a technological limiter because at very busy times if you've got loads of people waiting in excess of 70 minutes, then it brings the system down."
