The Charter Stakeholder Group published its annual assessment of HMRC on 21 July, and the number that matters is 2.8. That is what 719 taxpayers and agents scored HMRC out of ten for being responsive, and it is the lowest-rated standard for the third consecutive year. Making things easy scored 3.25. Getting things right scored 3.97. Only one standard, keeping data secure, improved at all. The report's own language is that the results indicate systemic failure rather than isolated instances of poor customer service.
Most coverage of this treats it as a story about HMRC. It is not. It is a story about where the work goes when a tax authority stops answering, and the answer is that it goes to accountants, unbilled, at exactly the moment when compliance obligations are rising.
This post covers what the assessment actually found, why a service failure at HMRC becomes a margin problem in your practice, and why the firms that name it publicly are winning clients from the firms that quietly absorb it.
What the assessment actually found
The Charter is HMRC's set of commitments about how it will treat taxpayers and agents. Each year a stakeholder group surveys the people on the receiving end and scores performance against each standard. This year 719 respondents rated seven standards on a one-to-ten scale.
The results, worst to best: being responsive 2.8, making things easy 3.25, getting things right 3.97, treating you fairly 5.25, mutual respect 5.89, recognising representation 6.31, keeping data secure 6.86. Only that last one moved in the right direction.
The written feedback on responsiveness is more useful than the score. Respondents cited persistent postal delays, poor first-time resolution, limited helpline expertise, no visibility of where a case sits in a queue, and no effective escalation route. Those are not complaints about rudeness. They are complaints about a system that cannot tell you whether your query is being worked on.
On Making Tax Digital the language was blunter still: poorly designed, badly communicated, not fit for purpose. Respondents pointed to extra costs, forced software dependence, and a lack of confidence that HMRC can cope with the demands of MTD given its existing service and systems problems. Nearly 89 percent felt HMRC had not prioritised Charter standards in its transformation plans, with a recurring concern that digitalisation is being put ahead of fairness, accuracy and support.
Why HMRC's service problem becomes your margin problem
When a taxpayer cannot get an answer from HMRC, they do not give up. They ring their accountant.
That call is rarely billable. It is fifteen minutes explaining that yes, the letter is genuine, no, we still have not heard back, and no, there is no way to find out where it is in the queue. Multiply that across a client base during a period when postal delays are measured in months and you have a meaningful, invisible cost sitting inside a fixed fee that was never scoped for it.
The second-order effect is worse. Clients do not distinguish cleanly between HMRC's failure and their adviser's. When a repayment is six months late and nobody can say why, the frustration attaches to whoever they last spoke to. That is you. A firm can deliver technically perfect work and still lose a client to an experience it did not cause and cannot control.
A worked example
A trading company submits a repayment claim in March. By July nothing has arrived, the helpline cannot say where the case sits, and there is no escalation route that produces an answer. The director rings the practice three times over four months. Each call is twenty minutes of reassurance and no new information.
In the first version of this story, the firm said nothing in advance. From the client's side, they submitted something, waited, chased, and got vague answers from their own accountant. They start wondering whether a bigger firm would have more pull.
In the second version, the firm sent a short note in March: HMRC's own service scores are at record lows, repayments are running long, here is what we have submitted, here is what we will do if it stalls, and here is when we will chase. Same delay, same outcome, entirely different relationship. In the second version the firm looks like the one competent party in the process.
The difference costs one email.
Making Tax Digital is the aggravating factor
The Charter feedback on MTD matters more than the headline score, because MTD is expanding into a population that has never dealt with HMRC directly at any volume. We covered the practical readiness gap when MTD for Income Tax went live, and this report adds the part that was missing: the people being brought into quarterly digital reporting have very little confidence in the department running it.
That combination — more mandatory touchpoints with HMRC, and a service layer scoring 2.8 out of 10 for responsiveness — produces a predictable outcome. More queries, more confusion, and more of both landing on practices rather than on helplines. Firms that have not priced or systemised for that volume will feel it as an unexplained drop in profitability rather than as a policy problem.
The opportunity for firms that say it out loud
Almost nobody is talking to clients about this. The report is trade-press material; owner-managers do not read it. That gap is the opening.
A firm that sends a plain briefing — HMRC's service scores are at record lows, here is what that means for your repayments, your enquiries and your MTD filings, and here is how we handle it — is doing three things at once. It is pre-empting the frustrated phone call. It is demonstrating that it watches the landscape rather than just filing returns. And it is giving a reason to make contact with every client on the list in a month when there is usually nothing to say.
It also opens chargeable work: agent-authorisation reviews so cases can actually be progressed, MTD readiness checks for clients about to be pulled in, and enquiry-support or fee-protection cover for the households and businesses most exposed to a long-running case.
There is an acquisition angle too. Owners are searching phrases like "how long is HMRC taking to reply", "HMRC not responding to my letter" and "is my accountant chasing HMRC". The firm whose page answers those clearly earns the enquiry from a business whose current accountant has said nothing for six months. Rising frustration with the process is one of the more reliable moments for an owner to reconsider who advises them, the same dynamic behind the 2026 UK client switching window and the enforcement pressure we set out when the UK tax gap hit a record 6.4 percent.
The cost of absorbing it quietly
Silence here is not neutral. A practice that swallows the extra calls, never explains the cause, and never adjusts its pricing ends up doing more work for the same fee while its clients slowly conclude the service has got worse. Both halves of that are avoidable, and neither is fixed by working harder.
The firms that come out of this period stronger will be the ones that named the problem early, showed clients they understood it, and made themselves easy to find for the owners whose own adviser stayed quiet. The framework for that sits in our complete guide to digital marketing for accounting firms.
Visibility is the deliverable
Being able to handle an HMRC mess is assumed. Every competent practice can. What separates the firms that grow from this from the firms that merely survive it is whether a frustrated owner can find them at the moment they start looking.
That is a marketing problem with concrete parts. A fast, clear page targeting the phrases anxious owners actually search, which is the work of search engine optimisation. Automated first-line responses so routine client questions get answered immediately instead of queuing behind your own inbox, which is the work of AI integrations and automation. And a proactive note reaching every client before they chase you, which is the work of email and lifecycle marketing. The full picture for UK practices sits on our page for digital marketing for UK accounting firms.
What to do this quarter
Send the briefing. One page, plain English, naming HMRC's own scores and what your firm does about them. Audit which clients have open cases and set a chasing cadence so nobody has to ask you for an update. Check agent authorisations are current, because a broken authorisation turns a slow case into a stuck one. Identify which clients are being brought into MTD in the next twelve months and contact them before the deadline rather than after. Then publish the public version of that briefing so the owners you do not yet act for can find it.
Triomatic Marketing builds these systems for accounting firms across the UK, USA and UAE. We are AI-powered and founder-led, and we treat a period of rising client frustration as the acquisition window it is. To talk it through, book a free 15-minute call at https://calendly.com/hello-triomaticmarketing/15min.
Frequently asked questions
What did HMRC score in the 2026 Charter report?
HMRC scored 2.8 out of 10 for being responsive, its lowest-rated standard for the third consecutive year. Making things easy scored 3.25 and getting things right scored 3.97. Keeping data secure, at 6.86, was the only standard to improve.
Who produces the HMRC Charter assessment?
The Charter Stakeholder Group surveys taxpayers and agents each year and scores HMRC against its published Charter standards. The 2026 assessment was based on 719 respondents and was published on 21 July 2026.
What did the report say about Making Tax Digital?
Respondents described MTD as poorly designed, badly communicated and not fit for purpose, citing extra costs and forced software dependence. Nearly 89 percent felt HMRC had not prioritised Charter standards in its transformation plans.
Why does HMRC's service performance matter to accounting firms?
When taxpayers cannot get answers from HMRC they contact their accountant instead. That work is usually unbilled, and clients frequently attach their frustration to whoever they last spoke to rather than to HMRC, which puts client relationships at risk for a failure the firm did not cause.
How does Triomatic Marketing help accounting firms with this?
We build the page that ranks for the questions frustrated owners are searching, the automation that answers routine client queries instantly, and the email systems that reach every client with your position before they chase you. Book a free 15-minute call at https://calendly.com/hello-triomaticmarketing/15min to scope it.