What questions and concerns do HMRC customers raise with Third Sector
organisations in respect of bereavement issues – specifically bereavement
and tax issues?
How can HMRC improve its website offering to best address customer needs?
Feedback from group
Sign post the bereaved to other help – there should be strong
links from the government websites to the non profit organisations that
can help such as Cruse.
Guidance is needed to help survivors sort out their own tax affairs
– not just those of the deceased.
Remind survivors that a new Tax Credit claim needs to be made to change
their status to that of single person.
Form R27 frightens older people - is there any online help?
Fathers are in the parental driving seat sometimes for the first time,
there are a lot of new challenges for them and may be many issues that
they don’t understand and will need additional guidance on it can
be a very traumatic time.
Widows are often becoming a taxpayer for the first time as well as
having to sort out the estate following the bereavement.
There is no departmental sense of the magnitude of how much bereaved
people are suffering – survivors feel it’s hard to undertake
the journeys/procedures they are required to make – HMRC needs to
get their tone of communications right.
Help the Aged has a good booklet and uses a good tone.
The DWP’s D49 booklet – What to do after a death in England
and Wales - has not been updated since 2006 and the HMRC contact information
is out of date.
The Directgov website advises the bereaved to contact the deceased’s
tax office but gives no guidance as to how to do that.
The HMRC Inheritance Tax/Probate Helpline should take on all bereavement
calls.
The bereaved should be provided with a step by step guide of actions
they need to take and issues they need to consider.
Contact information is hard to find on the website.
The bereaved are often coming to the benefits system for the first time
in their lives and they are scared.
