The UK tax authority is to close all of its 281 Enquiry Centres which gave face-to-face help to 2.5 million people with tax queries last year. The move in 2014 by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will put 1,300 jobs at risk, although the authority aims to deploy these staff elsewhere. The centres will be replaced by a telephone service and home visits, to save HMRC £13m a year. "While we wish HMRC success in saving costs and making their brave new world of roving enquiry staff work, we wonder whether the timing of this change will come to haunt them," said Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the ACCA. "One wonders whether this should really happen to a later and longer timetable to take account of the wide ranging changes to the tax and benefits system."

Early closures
The tax authority said that the number of people using the Enquiry Centres across the UK had halved from five million in 2005-06 to 2.5 million in 2011-12. Each visit cost the service £152 on average, according to HMRC, but it said four out of five queries could have been solved on the telephone or online. There will be a five-month pilot of the new telephone-based service in the north-east of England, starting in June.....Read more here