Up to 55% of calls from taxpayers are
being rejected by the IRD because it does not have enough
staff rostered on to answer the phones, according to data
supplied to the Taxpayers' Union covering a 2-week
period in May this year.
"At tax time, the least the
Government could do is make sure it answers the phone," says
Jordan Williams, Executive Director of the Taxpayers'
Union. "On each of the three days the IRD have had to
cap the calls coming in, they didn't even answer the number
of calls their own estimates said they could
expect".
"These problems with the phones came on top of
significant downtime of the IRD's website
recently."
"Paying tax is bad enough but having to wait
hours on the phone only to be hung-up on, is a slap in the
face by the taxman".
"IRD's slogan used to be 'We're
here to help'. Nowadays, you're lucky if they're even
there."
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