Post Office may offer tax services

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Post Offices may be used by tax officials for face-to-face discussions with taxpayers as part of a programme to introduce more services to improve the commercial prospects of the network.


By Roland Gribben
Published: 7:04PM BST 19 Oct 2009

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is in talks with the Post Office about the feasibility of providing the services from Crown Post Offices, the biggest and most suitable for providing the privacy needed for consultations, appointments with advisers or access to helplines and contact centres.

The tax authorities says that no conclusions have been reached but they are continuing to explore the issues. They are concerned about maintaining taxpayer confidentiality and have reservations about going further and using franchised post offices, some of them in shops because of lack of space and privacy.

Details of the talks emerged yesterday in a report from the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills committee, the parliamentary group of MPs that shadows Lord Mandelson's department. The report is the Government's response to calls from the committee for a more adventurous approach to channelling more public services through post offices.

The report lists proposals for the expansion of a range of services, including banking but MPs are worried that the planned series of postal strikes will damage the prospects of strengthening the postal network and result in more post office closures.

They have been pressing the Government to get Whitehall departments and local authorities to make more use of post office services and their report discloses that an inter-departmental committee chaired by Lord Mandelson is acting as Whitehall "champion" for the Post Office to identify more business opportunities.

The MPs are critical of the Government failure to provide more detail about expanding banking services and feel Lord Mandelson and the Treasury are dithering over the "best model." They have asked Lord Mandelson to fill the missing gaps.

Currently post offices provided a range of financial services, including savings products, insurance, credit cards, foreign exchange and have recently entered the mortgage market.