Response from HMRC
Thank you for your letter of 4 March asking for details
of HM Revenue & Customs' (HMRC) provision of government services
through post offices. I apologise for the delay in responding
to your letter, and hope that the following information is still
of use to you.
HMRC currently pays Child Benefit and Tax Credits
to some customers through their Post Office card accounts. Each
month, over 600,000 of the total 7,500,000 Child Benefit customers
and over 250,000 out of 6,000,000 Tax Credits customers receive
their payments in this way.
HMRC accepts customer payments to its Alliance and
Leicester Commercial Bank accounts over the Post Office counter.
Payments can be made by cash, cheque or debit card. For the financial
year ended 31 March 2009, 3.7 million payments were made to HMRC
over the Post Office counter with a combined value of just over
£3.4 billion.
HMRC and the Post Office have entered into discussions
about the feasibility of providing HMRC face to face services
from Crown Post Office locations. So far, no conclusions have
been reached, however we will continue to explore these issues.
The services could involve appointments with advisers and/or access
to HMRC helplines and contact centres. At this stage, HMRC has
not identified all service constraints, but they are likely to
include concerns over taxpayer confidentiality in franchised post
offices in shop premises and a lack of space for the dedicated
desk for appointments that an HMRC face to face service would
require.
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