Alan Kelly
Question:271. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Minister for Finance if he will request the Revenue Commissioners to extend their opening hours of PAYE telephone line queries until 5 pm, five days a week. [22948/22]
View answerTuesday, 10 May 2022
Questions (271)
Written answers
I am advised by Revenue that most PAYE taxpayers affairs can be managed online, and Revenue provides a full range of online services to support this. These services, which include an online communications channel through the MyEnquiries system, are available 24/7, are easy to use and are fully secure. Revenue also provides a PAYE Helpline telephone service operating from 9.30am to 1.30pm each day.
To date in 2022, the PAYE service has processed over 990,000 tax returns, answered more than 247,000 telephone calls, and dealt with over 311,000 items of correspondence received through the online services and the post. Demand for the online contact channel has steadily increased in the past few years. For the four months to 1st May this year Revenue has received 311,000 PAYE related online contacts, the equivalent figure in 2019 was 147,000. This represents a 111% increase.
To ensure optimum support to PAYE taxpayers throughout the year, Revenue continuously reviews its service channels and deploys its resources on an agile basis to meet demand. The PAYE service is currently answering between 4,000 and 5,000 calls per day while also responding to between 4,500 and 6,000 correspondence items per day.
Revenue have confirmed that the purpose of operating the PAYE Helpline until 1.30pm is to free resources to process the tax returns, the more complicated items that arise through the Helpline (that cannot be dealt with during the call), and correspondence received through the online service and post. Revenue advise that when they do not concentrate resources on processing returns and correspondence in a timely matter that this results in a spike in calls from taxpayers wondering when their correspondence and refunds will be dealt with. The deployment of resources and the model of both the PAYE phone service and online service is carefully monitored and re-calibrated as required and reflects both demand levels from PAYE taxpayers and the need to provide an efficient and cost-effective service.