Reform UK has set out plans to fine and dismiss HMRC officials who fail to meet strict new customer service standards under a Nigel Farage-led government.
Under the proposed policy, customer service officers at the tax authority would have their pay directly tied to performance, with a mandatory target of keeping wait times below 30 minutes.
Taxpayers and small business owners forced to wait longer than 30 minutes on the phone to HMRC would receive a £30 tax credit at the end of the year.
HMRC is one of the largest employers in the public sector, with a workforce of approximately 70,000 staff handling tax and revenue matters across the UK.
The party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said the new performance measures would “restore basic fairness” to a system that has long frustrated businesses and individuals alike.
Reform cited research indicating that 50,000 calls were ended by HMRC without help being delivered to taxpayers, as call times stretched beyond 70 minutes.
Party officials also pointed to employment figures suggesting that 14 million hours of taxpayers’ time spent on hold had cost the UK economy around £275 million in lost productivity.
The HMRC crackdown forms part of a broader wave of policies Reform has introduced in recent months aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses, including raising the VAT threshold to £150,000 and replacing GDPR with a more “light-touch” personal data protection regime.
However, senior Reform figures have simultaneously clashed with major UK corporations over migration, with home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf targeting Serco, Deliveroo and Vodafone over issues including asylum hotels and sim cards given to people who crossed the Channel on small boats.
On Wednesday, Jenrick doubled down on criticism of larger companies that “exploit the taxpayer,” warning that firms employing illegal workers would find “life very tough under a Reform government.”
Jenrick also said the party did not believe in “crony capitalism” when pressed on whether larger businesses would face further scrutiny from a Reform administration.
Defending the HMRC performance pledge specifically, Jenrick kept his message straightforward, saying: “We’re just asking them to do their jobs.”
Reform will hold its party conference on the first weekend of September in Birmingham, where it will stage its first ever designated “business day” to engage directly with industry leaders.
Jenrick promised the event would be the “most impressive business day” hosted by any political party at the upcoming conference season.