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Written question asked by Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 11 November 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 13 November 2025. It was answered by Dan Tomlinson (Labour) on Wednesday, 19 November 2025 on behalf of the Treasury.

Taxation: Rebates

Question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process tax refund applications by HMRC; and if she will make a statement on measures to improve efficiency and accountability in HMRC’s service delivery.

Answer

HMRC recognise that repayments are important for customers. They prioritise them to ensure they are processed as quickly and securely as possible.

HMRC balance the provision of prompt payments to eligible customers with effective revenue protection from fraudsters. For Self Assessment repayments for example, once the repayment is created it goes through automated fraud and compliance checks. In 2024-25, after these checks, 93.1% of the repayments were paid automatically within a few days.

HMRC continues to invest in automation and to review their internal processes to ensure repayments are issued as quickly as possible.

HMRC recognise too the importance of keeping the customer, and where appropriate the customer’s representative, informed of progress and are exploring ways of doing that more effectively.

In the meantime, HMRC’s online ‘Where’s My Reply’ tool can help customers understand when they can expect to receive a response.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
89984
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Rebates Standards Taxation
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk