Fears over outsourcing tax debts

The outsourcing of debt collection by HM Revenue & Customs demands proper oversight and the publication of standards governing the conduct of contractors undertaking the work, a consumer charity has warned.

Accountancy Age revealed in February that the taxman was to outsource debt collection, but it has emerged that a six month contract has been awarded to iQor, which collect debts in Canada, India and the Phillipines.

Chris Tapp, director of consumer charity group CreditAction, said the absence of transparent guidelines to protect taxpayers in the scope of the contract is a concern.

'Our fear has always been about ensuring there would be oversight with what the agency was doing. There needs to be customer satisfaction work done on behalf of HMRC,’ he said.

It is understood that iQor will receive 25% of every debt settled in payment, further highlighting the need for guidelines to be transparent, according to Tapp. iQor is only permitted to make phone calls and write letters to debtors. ‘We’d be interested to know whether there’s any monitoring in the frequency of phone calls and whether they’re calling at anti-social hours,’ said Tapp.

According to Peter Lockhart, senior officer of the Public and Commercial Services union, 2,000 cases, mostly self assessment debts have already been assumed by iQor.

He said he is expecting internal dialogue over the handling of taxpayers’ data.

HMRC declined to comment.